Delta Shadows
by ShiningCrobat
Summary: A boy with an odd power sets out in the land of Orre to find his kidnapped parents with Wes's sister-in law, Rui's sister. Based off the TCG set: EX Delta Species, and Orre *****Reboot coming soon!*****
1. Chapter 1: Elewhosie what now?

**Chapter 1: "Ele-whosie what now?"**

The boy was shoved into a corner as he saw his parents dragged off into a van. What was he to do now? He had nothing left, no one to go to; his parents were his world to him. Normally he was a handsome child, but you couldn't tell with the tears that shed from his emerald eyes or the beautiful blond locks that he tugged at in frustration.

He could hear it, they were just starting up the van. Maybe, just maybe he could reach it in time to catch his parents. As if he had wings on his shoes, he sprinted off after his parents… and suddenly tripped. Barriers, of course, of course the kidnappers had Pokemon. Electabuzz, nonetheless and in that moment when they had him trapped, he saw a huge flash of electricity. The shock paralyzed him for hours, but the kidnappers didn't care; they made off with his parents.

When he finally awoke, the boy thought he was in heaven. An angel with long, shining brow hair, a petite mouth and wide, expressive odd white was because the room had recently been painted. Some fuzzy ferret-like Pokemon scurried up the girl's shoulder as she smiled at the boy. "Are you okay?" she asked as she got up to get an ice pack. blue eyes was the only thing he saw other than an unearthly white flashing all around him.

With a few moments to focus he noticed that the angel was just a normal girl and that the "I-…Who are you?" words were hard to come back to the boy after not being able to open his mouth for so long. He sat up against the head of the bed he had been laying on and looked back over to the girl. He could tell why he thought the girl was an angel… and the Pokemon was a bit cute. What was the name of that Pokemon again? he thought.

The girl giggled in delight and stroked her Pokemon a couple times. While sitting down in a chair next to the boy's bed she said, "You tell me first. Oh, and hold this to your forehead." She passed over the ice pack that she went to pick up.

From the way the girl was looking at him, he could tell that she meant him no harm unlike the men that had kidnapped his parents. He smiled back at her weakly as he took the icepack and pressed it to his head. " I should be fine soon. The Pokemon didn't hurt me too bad; they just paralyzed me. My name is Eric," he said before holding out his hand for the girl to shake. She held back a chuckle as she took Eric's hand and shook it. When she let go of his hand, she said, "And my name is Roxanne, but you can call me Roxie or even Anne if you want." The Pokemon crawled into her lap, and she picked it up to show it to Eric. "Say hello to Eric, Florina," she whispered to the Pokemon. As the Pokemon approached his wrist, Eric noticed something, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it. Carefully he petted it, just as Roxie had. Then he noticed that this… this Furret, that's what this Pokemon is called, didn't feel as furry as it ought to, and it was a bit colder. "Um, is there something wrong with your Furret, Roxie?" he asked as he picked Florina up.

Roxie looked a bit confused as she said, "Yea, but most people don't usually figure that out until I battle… How did you know that she was a Delta Pokemon?"

"Delta Pokemon? What the heck is a Delta Pokemon?" Eric noticed that the Furret also had small fins under its fur.

"Oh yea, I forgot that I picked you up near Orre. I'm just used to everyone knowing what's going on. A Delta Pokemon is a Pokemon whose elemental aura has been screwed around with, changing its Special type if it has one, or adding a Special type if it doesn't have one. It involves some kind of process with metal for higher stages of evolution though, so they also become steel types."

"Ele-whosie what now?"

Roxie shook her head and just smiled wider. "Elemental aurora, it determines what type of Special type a Pokemon will be if any. It can be modified so the Pokemon will be another type…But only with the machinery we have here in Holon."

Eric still didn't grasp the concept, and it didn't help that he had just been paralyzed for the last few hours. "But… Furret starts out as just a Physical, how did it get an aura?"

"Oh, it took a while, but the scientists can make artificial auras now. There's also an aura remover for Pokemon with 2 Special types so that they can undergo the metal coating process."

"Wait, why do they need the coatings again?"

"I don't really know, it has something to do with powerful Pokemon being more resistant to the change," she said with a shrug. A noise from another room could be heard, it sounded like a door being open. The smile fell from Roxie's face fell and it was replaced with a look of horror. "I'm sorry, my parents don't usually let me have guys… or injured people over," she said as she wheeled Eric's rolling bed into her walk-in closet. She put her pointer finger on her lips and made a sushing noise while closing the door. The look of confusion on Eric's face, however, stayed. How could Roxie have dragged him out of Orre with out her parents noticing. He stroked Florina a bit longer, but an Abra popped into the room. Now the answer was obvious, and he was content. Having nothing else to do, he silently slipped back to sleep.  
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Side Notes:  
-Delta Pokemon can have a Steel coating without haveing their elemental aura changed. (ex: A Steel/Psychic Gardivoir)  
-Delta Pokemon can become only Steel type with a Steel coating. (ex: A Steel Pikachu or a Steel Eevee)  
-Feel free to rate this or correct my grammar and spelling. xP I try my hardest to edit out mistakes, but you may find something that I have forgotten.


	2. Chapter 2: The Delta Eye

Chapter 2: The Delta Eye

The next time Eric woke up, he saw a much older red-haired woman at his bed. She looked a little bit like Roxanne, but she also looked familiar… "Hey kiddo," she said with a smile that reassured Eric that she was in some way related to Roxanne. Eric hopped out of the bed, and found that he had finally recovers from being paralyzed for so long.

"Who are you?" Eric asked as he found his balance again. He was starting to remember the woman a little better now. He knew that he had seen her on TV at some point. He just couldn't remember why she was on the TV.

"Oh, I'm Roxie's sister, Rui" She went to the door of Roxie's room, opened it, then peeked out a bit. No one was there, so she ushered Eric out. "I'm going to take you back to Orre and find you're parents, guardians, whoever's raising you."

Eric finally recognized the woman when she said her name, she was the girl with the Shadow Eye. Six years ago in Chiper's first attempt at mass manufacturing Shadow Pokemon, she helped a young man Wes identify the Shadow Pokemon and stop two teams up to evil deeds. He only gave this a second's thought though, because he missed his parents again. "My parents… some men came into my house and kidnapped them, then paralyzed me and knocked me out with a couple Electabuzz,"

Rui shook her head and said, "Ok, we'll go down to the police station as soon as we get to my house. It seems that you'll be staying with me a little longer than planned." She looked back over to Eric and sighed; what would anyone want with this kid's parents? Again she guided Eric out of a door, and they were in Holon Town.

Eric almost froze up as he walked out of the door; Holon Town was one of the most amazing places he had ever seen. There were markets and people walking everywhere, greeting each other just as in any other town. Everything, however, was completely high-tech. There were stock-bots in every market stall and flying greeter-bots going every which way. Oddest of all though was the amount of Pokemon with a silvery mist hanging around them… "Do you notice anything odd about these Pokemon?" asked Eric as he looked up to Rui.

Rui tilted her head to the side and stared at the Pokemon. Did this kid have a Shadow Eye too, one stronger than hers? No, no she assured herself that it was impossible, but what was the kid seeing then? "No; why, what do you see?"

Eric looked back to the Pokemon once again to be sure what he saw. "I don't know, its kind of like an aura, and it looks all silvery." While looking around, his eye caught a Bulbasuar berating fire. Of course! he thought, they're Delta Pokemon. "I think its Delta Pokemon that are all like that…"

Delta Pokemon… yea, Roxie had told Rui about those. So he wasn't seeing Shadow Auras, but manipulated Elemental Auras from Delta Pokemon. She brushed away some hair from Eric's face (for it was just long enough to cover his eyes) and looked in his right eye. There was no denying it, this boy had an Eye for strange Pokemon too. "You must have a … Delta Eye," she said with a nod.

Eric was almost overcome with joy, he thought he would become a hero just as Wes and Rui had with the Delta Eye. The word almost is used here because Eric saw a fire starting in the upper levels of the large tower in the Center of Holon Town. He saw a lot of silver haze coming from the tower; it must have been where Delta Pokemon were manufactured.

Worst of all, he saw 2 menacing Electabuzz paralyzing some scientists that were trying to escape before the fire spread lower. He made a dash for it, thinking that his parents could be somewhere near. It didn't even cross his mind that the Electabuzz would just knock him down again.

Rui didn't see the chaos though, and in Eric mind it may have cost him being reunited with his parents. Rui grabbed Eric's hand, then the hand of an Abra that popped onto her shoulder. The three of them disappeared from Holon and reappeared in a beautiful house. Eric appeared next to a window, and outside he saw miles and miles of sand. There was no doubt, he was back in Orre.  
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Side Notes:  
-If you didn't catch it, I mentioned that this story takes place 6 years after Collo. in this chapter, which is also 1 year after XD.


	3. Chapter 3: Shock and Preparations

Chapter 3: Shock and Preparations

Eric blinked for a few moments before he gathered his wits again. He broke his eyes from the window and looked around frantically. Then he saw it; the Abra that had teleported them into the obviously expensive house was knocked out and at Rui's feet. He also saw that Rui was wobbling, partly because she was dizzy from the teleportaton and partly because she was trying to avoid stepping on the Abra. Eric grimaced and looked around once again, maybe another Pokemon could take him back. All he saw though was Roxie entering and looking in complete shock at the Abra.

"What the… you didn't teleport here, did you?" Roxie asked with a glare up to her sister. She ran over to the Abra and picked it up. After a moment's inspection she said, "He's gonna have to rest for at least a week before he's able to do it again. Why do you think I took the ferry here? Abra can't teleport too far too much in a short period of time!"

Rui sighed, and oddly enough it sounded almost exactly like her sister's sigh. "I didn't know anything about that. You're the one who wants to be a Pokemon nurse, maybe you should have reminded me before I went to pick him up."

"Its only common sense… Besides, I wouldn't have had to stay here to help you if Wes hadn't gotten into that battle yesterday. You should be grateful that such a good nurse in training was here to help heal all the Pokemon," Roxie said in a haughty tone. She set down the Abra in a chair and began rubbing an ointment on its stomach. "Oh, hey Eric," she said with a small wave.

Rui rolled her eyes and walked away as Eric pulled up a chair beside Abra. It was obvious in his voice that he was anxious when he said, "Erm, hi gain Roxie. Is there another Abra around that could take me back to Holon?" He went over it oven and over again in his mind, seeing the Electabuzz and than being pulled away to… Wait where am I?

"Why would you want to go back there? Rui's and Wes's is much nicer than my house… plus I don't have to worry about my parents finding you here," Rui said as she glanced up at Eric. She thought she might have looked a moment to long, blushed, and got back to helping the Abra.

Eric's voice strained even more as it all came out, "I saw the Electabuzz that paralyzed me and I'm pretty sure that their trainers were there too… So I thought they might have had to take my parents along with them."

All of the sudden a guy come into the room, and he looked about 20 years old, maybe a little older. He had short, spikey, incredibly light brown hair, tanned skin, large piercing odd eyes, a small nose, and oddly enough, a reassuring smile on his face. He was wearing a nice black suit with a gray tie and a white shirt underneath, but he would have been more recognizable in a blue and red coat and tight black pants. Yes, it was Wes who had taken down Cipher's first Shadow Operation six years ago. He looked over to Eric and said, "Ah, don't worry, I'll get one of my units near Holon on it right away." He plucked a walkie-talkie off his belt and mumbled something into it.

Eric tilted his head to the side, he couldn't believe it, even if Roxie had mentioned it before. For a few moments he just spaced out, but eventually he managed to squeak out Thanks-…"

Wes blinked uncertainly, but was able to found out what the kid's problem was and said, "Oh, you can call me Wes." He put the walkie-talkie back in its holster on his belt and smiled at Eric again. "So, you were taken down by a couple Electabuzz, huh? Don't you have any Pokemon?"

Eric shook his head, too confused to say anything more. He had wished that he could have been a trainer, but there were so few Pokemon in Orre other than in the Pokespots. He decided he would become a Pokemon Watcher because he was a great artist, but it was a challenge to get a natural pose from a Pokemon when none of them were wild. At least I still have my sketchpad in my jacket, he thought as he reached into his jacket for it.

Wes tossed a Pokeball over to Eric and he took his hand out of his jacket to catch it. "Well that's no good. You need to lean some self defense in case something like this happens after we find your parents." He looked over to Roxie and raised his eyebrows in a questionative way. "And perhaps you can help him since its tradition to fight in double battles around here?"

Roxie was all done taking care of the Abra, so she shrugged and nodded. "Sure, why not? So, should we head over to the stadium?" She grabbed the only Pokeball on her belt, it must have been the Furret.

Wes walked toward a door and opened it with great ease, He ushered the 2 children into a room with a large dirt floor and a Pokeball like symbol printed in the middle. "Welcome to my Stadium," Wes said with another smile. He went of to the right side of the room and said, without looking back, "You guys take that side of the arena."

Roxie and Eric took walked to the opposite side, occasionally stealing glances at each other. Eventually they looked at the same time, blushed, and looked away. Once all 3 trainers were finally in their spaces, Wes threw out two Pokeballs. Out of them came one Umbreon and one Espeon. Eric's eye's widened, because around each Pokemon was a silvery aura; they were Delta Pokemon.  
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Sidenotes:  
-Wes is now the leader of an international security company.  
-Wes isn't the reason why they have enough money to afford such a nice house, I'll explain why in the next chapter or so.


	4. Chapter 4: The Delta Disadvantage

Chapter 4: The Delta Disadvantage

Eric looked over to Roxie and tugged her a little closer by the sleeve. She looked a little disgruntled, but she knew it must be important if he was pulling her over. After a bit of bending over so he was as close to her ear as possible, he whispered, "Roxie, those are Delta Pokemon!"

Roxie's eyes bugged out as she looked back at the two Pokemon that Wes had released from his pokeballs. Both Pokemon looked pretty normal, so she said, "What, how can you tell? … Better yet, can you tell what type they are?"

Eric brushed back his hair so that Roxie could see his right eye. She noticed it right away, but it looked a little… different. As Eric took his hand away, he said, "Your sister said it worked kind of like her Eye, but only with Delta Pokemon." He smiled at his battle partner, for she was absolutely astounded. "Oh, and the Espeon is Psychic slash Steel and the Umbreon is Dark/Steel."

Roxie's mind-boggled look disappeared from her face, and she suddenly looked confident. "If Wes gave you a Fire or Fighting Pokemon, we have it made. Go ahead and toss it out already, I think Wes is watching." She broke her gaze with Eric, flung back her hair, and tossed out the pokeball containing Florina with perfect grace. The Furret appeared in a flash of dim-red light as the pokeball bounced back into Roxie's hand.

Eric's hand trembled, this would be his first Pokemon battle; would he be any good at it? He knew which Pokemon were most effective against which and which were least effective against which, but there had to be more to battle strategy than that. Eric threw out his pokeball with so much less grace than Roxie that he almost tripped. His Pokemon didn't come out in a flash of red, but in an odd clock pattern… a Timer Ball. The ball flew back into Eric's hand, and a smile pulled over his face as he saw the Pokemon, A Combusken. Exactly what Roxie had said would help them the most.

Wes looked over to Eric and Roxie and said, "I suppose you've figured out all about Sunshine and Moonfire by now, haven't you?" The smile on Eric's face slipped into a look of confusion. "Oh, no, I'm not psychic or oddly good at hearing, Rui left her walkie-talkie onto my channel when you guys were talking about it in Holon. No need to worry though, this is only a practice battle so I'm letting you 2 take the first move."

Eric looked over to Combusken and got a feel for it. It seemed all to ready to battle, and very happy to. "Combusken, use a … uh…", but he couldn't remember the right attack to say at all. He just concentrated on the most powerful attack he could think of and it slipped out, "Sky Uppercut? … On Umbreon!" The Combusken was almost unsure of what to because of the uncertainty in its trainer's voice, but it followed through anyway. It ran up to Umbreon with amazing speed, almost a blur. When it finally got to its target, Combusken threw a punch to its jaw, sending it slamming into the ceiling.

Meanwhile, Roxie screamed out, "Surf!" to her Furret. Out of nowhere appeared a gigantic wave that smashed into Espeon, and Umbreon when it fell back down to its place on the battle field. Slowly the wave was absorbed into the dirt below it and it all disappeared.

Wes took a few moments to think, then said to his opponents and 'students', "A good turn for you, Eric. Just sound surer about yourself so your Pokemon can be sure of you. But you," he turned his head to Roxie, "forgot something that could have saved a lot of trouble. Remember that you" Roxie though for a few moments, then remembered and slammed her hand onto her forehead. Wes smiled and said, "Don't worry, you'll have a chance to redeem yourself. Anywho, lets get on with this. Sunshine, Psychic on Combusken and Moonfire, Attract on Combusken!"

The Espeon took a sick hold on Combusken with its mind and flung it into a wall. Combusken was in deep pain, but it didn't really notice. All it could see now was the Umbreon luring him in with her perfect eyes and slender, delicate moves…

Roxie was ready to make up for her stupid mistake. She looked over to Florina and said, "Okay, this time we're going to lend a helping Hand to Combusken." Florina scurried over to Combusken and crawled up it. Eventually she made her way onto Combusken's arm and hung onto it.

Eric didn't really understand what this would do to help the battle, but he went on. He figured finishing off Umbreon would be more important than getting rid of Espeon, so he ordered, "Lets give Umbreon another Sky Uppercut!" Although it was reluctant to do so this time, Combusken dashed up to Umbreon just as it had before and threw its punch to her jaw. Right before impact though, Furret flied off of Combusken's hand and hit the Eeveelution. Before it even have a chance to recover, Combusken finished the Pokemon off with its heavy punch. Moonfire laid still on the ground with an x in one eye and a swirl in the other.

Wes returned his fallen comrade with a little nod of thanks. He looked over to the other battlers again to make his turn report. "I think you guys are getting a better hang of this, but maybe it would have been better just to have Furret and Combusken attack seperately in case my plan of infatuation worked. Plus, I have Sunshine wide open for another good, super effective attack on Combusken. On that note, lets give 'im another Psychic." Sunshine had a little more fun with its Psychic this time, it made Combusken to a little dance before smashing it into a second wall.

Roxie shook her head as she thought, Combusken's going to get knocked out this turn if we can't finish this. Lets see, a fire attack would be more effective on Espeon, so…"Okay, another Helping Hand, but for a Fire attach this time!"

Eric felt stupid for not thinking of it before Roxie did. Of course Fire would work better than Fighting on Espeon, Espeon was also a Psychic type. At least he knew a good Fire attack that would work well in this situation. "Use Flamethrower after that Furret is in position," he said gingerly to his Pokemon. He still had to get used to that idea, his Pokemon.

Furret waited right under Combusken at it let out a jet of flames that started to dance their way over to Espeon. Furret rode that jet and smacked Espeon, then the flames licked it up and knocked it out. All of the pokemon remaining on the field were returned, making the room glow oddly red and tic for a moment.

Wes walked over to Eric and shook his hand with a casual smile. "You have a natural talent for this, I can tell. Just remember that defense can be as important as offence. Any attacks that can paralyze or freeze will help you out immensely in that area." Eric offered the Timer Ball back to Wes, but he shook his head, "No, you keep him, I think he likes you."

The ball didn't stay in Eric's hand for long though, because Roxie plucked it right out. She also took Moonfire's and Sunshine's pokeballs. "I'm going to the Center to heal these guys," she said as she walked out of the room. Wes and Eric stared down the hallway with blank, confused looks on their faces. Eventually they turned to see each other and laughed.  
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Sidenotes:  
-In case your wondering, I named this chaper The Delta Disadvantage because even of the pokemon have new types and some new type advantages, they also gain type disadvantages.  
-For any of you that actually play the card game, I know that Delta Pokemon are supposed to get weaknesses and resistances from thier original types, but I like it more my way. >.>


	5. Chapter 5: A Simple Sketch

Chapter 5: A Simple Sketch

Eric and Wes walked out of the room and out of the corner of his eye, Eric could still see Roxie running down the hall with their damaged or fainted Pokemon. He had to admit, that battle was one of the most fun things he had ever done in his life. The battle had been a self defense lesson though, so he knew that the next time he would be using the knowledge, he might be in danger; that would make things a little less fun. He silently promised to himself that he would work hard to become a powerful trainer so that once his parents were back, they would never take them again.

Wes passed his hand over Eric's face to be sure the kid was still in there. Eric looked like he was pretty deep in though, and a serious, determined look was spreading around his face. "Are you still there Eric?" the hero asked him with another smile.

Eric finally slipped out of the possible future and into the present. He glanced up at Wes and gave him a smile right back and thought, This sounds so corny, but smiles are contagious…. "Huh, what was that?" he asked as he slipped a hand into one of his blue jeans' pockets.

Wes chuckled a bit and shook his head as if he was dismissing it. "Never mind, you answered my question without saying anything. I was just wonder, if you don't mind, could I ask about the people who too your parents? What they look like and so on?" The young man looked ready to hear a tale of any sort from the boy.

Eric was not good at describing in words, but he always had a way to show his feelings in his art. Every once in while he wouldn't draw a Pokemon from sight, he would draw it from memory and surround it in his own feeling at the time. He quickly pulled out the sketchpad that was in his unzipped orange-vest jacket and a pencil from one of its pockets. "It would be easier if I could draw them for you," he said as he flipped to a fresh page. "I won't be able to put any color in it though, they're all back at my house…"

A sketch artist, hm? Or a Pokemon Watcher, I suppose, thought Wes as he looked down at the sketchpad. "No worries. Believe it or not, I have an art supply closet all the way at the other end of this place. Why don't you wait in that place where you teleported in and get started on the sketch until I come back? Do you know the way back to it?" Eric just nodded and continued to walk forward as he stared at the blank page. Wes walked off to the left.

Eric sat down in a yellow-gold couch in the den where he had appeared. It was soft, softer than anything he had ever sat on before. It was just the perfect setting to make him forget the world around him and dive right into his sketch. By the time that Wes came back, about 20 minutes later, Eric had already finished the upper body of one of the men. Wes set a box of colored pencils next to Eric, and when Eric looked, he gasped. There were 20,000 different colors… how could there ever bee so many shades!

Wes laughed and sat down in a chair near the sofa that Eric was sitting in. "Well, its good to have choice isn't it. Go ahead and keep them, I have a feeling that you'll use them better than Rui or I could," he said as he put his arms in his lap.

Eric stuttered a bit as he said, "Wow, thanks a lot… This is a top of the line brand too, it must have been a pretty penny… at least in colored pencil standards." For a while longer he just went on silently, drawing the outlines and preparing to color and shade it all in. When he was finally finished with the outlines, he slipped back to the real world again and was embarrassed about how quite it was; he thought Wes might be insulted that he hadn't said a word. As he opened up the box of colored pencils he asked, "How do you afford all this? I mean you must have a good job now, but… it can't make enough to afford this mansion."

Wes was half-asleep and when he snapped back, he was even more embarrassed than Eric was. "Oh, there is now way that I could afford this with my job, even though I do make much more than enough… 3 years ago when Rui and I were still dating, she 'sold away' her gift to scientific research so that other people could identify Shadow Pokemon if needed. The device they made, the Shadow Visor, was actually pretty good though, and the kid who stopped the second Shadow Operation last year used it."

Eric did not dare look up from his sketch, he was doing too well with his shading right then, but he said, "Wow, that's a lot of money to spend for such a talent… but I guess it was useful if it stopped another Shadow Operation." He was finished with the first man's coloring and he started on the second one with a different pencil that he picked up from his side. In only a few more minutes he was done and he presented the picture to Wes.

Wes's eyebrows went up a little bit as he carefully took the sketchpad from Eric's hands. "I know who these guys are, the kid from a year ago told me about these guys. He joined up with me last year. There are 6 of them actually, and they each were fruity latex suits and masks like these. Each of the brothers likes a different type, they were all part of Cipher, and they were all horrible Pokmeon trainers. If they attacked Holon and took scientists… They could be starting their own team with a Delta Operation."

Eric could not believe it at all … and where did his parents fit into all of this, why were they taken away at all? He stood in silence for a couple of moments, but eventually he asked, "But you're putting an agent on it, right?"

Wes sat up in the chair again and thought for a moment. "Well, normally I would put the kid from last year on this since he knows the most about them, but he's on something else… The same goes for everyone of the other agents that I thought were free," Wes mulled it over a few moments, he did have an idea… "Well…maybe I could…"

Eric looked at him expectantly, as if he was hanging on every word that the man said. He had no idea what Wes was about to suggest, so he said, "Yes?"

Wes looked Eric in the eye for a moment, surveying his character, then nodding. "Yes… I'll hire you and put you on it. We'll just need an assignment from someone who hates these Fruit Loops, but you can start on it." Wes started to think of all the things that he would need to pack for Eric.

Eric's eyes widened in shock and wonder; why would Wes put him on this? Deep in the back of his brain though, he knew he wanted to do it, maybe he could put his Delta Eye to use. "Are you sure… Me?"

Wes nodded and said, "If you're uncomfortable going alone… Roxie does summer work for me, although her parents think she does something different. You 2 are both on summer break from school, so this works out perfectly. She'll accompany you, I'll tell her tonight. I can give you guys supplies tomorrow and you can leave tomorrow morning." Wes looked at his watch and stood up. "Well, if you're going out on an adventure tomorrow, it would be a good idea to go to bed now." Eric didn't say another word, he was just too excited. Wes led Eric to a guest bedroom that looked all too much like a fancy hotel room and told him good night. Eric slipped into the bed and smiled… he would be the next hero of Orre.


	6. Chapter 6: Gadgets

Chapter 6: Gadgets  
As a hint of sunlight glittered gently into Eric's room, a loud banging that sounded almost like gunshots suddenly awaked him. He panicked and looked from side to side, hoping that no bullets can into his room at all. The hero-to-be, however, just saw the origin of the sound, an alarm clock that went off from the CD in it. Whoever set this up was smart, gunshots would wake just about anyone up. Eric turned off the alarm and sat up while rubbing his eyes.

Eventually he put his hands at his sides and stared oddly at the clothes on his bed. On top of his blanket there was a suit lain out, a lot like Wes's, but in Eric's exact size. He wondered for a moment why he would need a suit to find and fight his parent's kidnappers. He shrugged off the clothes that had gathered up sand when he was lying paralyzed in the desert and slipped into the suit. It felt odd, but good, almost too smooth and too comfortable.

Eric opened the door and walked out. He met Roxie in the hallway, smiled, and said, "Good morning, partner." He put his hands in his jacket's pocket, as if being in this suit was the most casual thing that could happen to him.

Roxie chuckled a little as she pulled one of Eric's hands out of the jacket and placed a Timer Ball, most likely Combusken's in his hand. Eric was wearing the suit completely incorrectly, obviously he hadn't found the instructions in the pants pocket. She would just leave it up to Wes to tell him what the suit really was. "Same to you, Eric. 'Cmon, lets head down to sitting room. Wes is giving us a 'mission briefing' there." She realizes that she had been holding onto Eric hand for a bit too long, blushed, and let it go. As she strutted angelically down the hall, she tied her hair u in a ponytail.

Eric blushed too and tagged along right behind her like a Houndour. "So you want to be a nurse, right? I mean, Rui mentioned it, you healed the Pokemon… and me." IT was at that moment that he notices the Furret flopped around Roxie's neck. He figured that he should make friends with his Pokemon and looked at the Timer Ball in his hands.

Roxie nodded and said, "Normally I would be volunteering at a Pokemon Center or a hospital right now, but Wes actually pays me and I get plenty of work by healing all of his Pokemon." Florina nuzzled it's trainer a bit, flopped its head down on her shoulder, and started to snooze. "I saw the sketch you made for Wes, you must want to be a watcher, right?"

Eric threw out the Timer Ball and caught it after it unleashed Combusken into the world and sprang back. The Combusken looked up at him oddly as it stretched. Eric thought of what the Pokemon might be expecting, so he instinctively dug into his pockets. There he found a Pokeblock, which he handed it over Combusken while he said, "Yea, but it would be nicer if Orre could support more wild life." The Combusken greedily took the fruity treat and gobbled it up. " I think I'll name you Blaze," Eric said to the overgrown chicken with a pat on the head. "So, what grade are you going into next year?" Eric really wanted to figure out what the age difference was between them…

"I'll be a sophomore in my high school next year," Roxie said as she picked Florina off of her shoulder and gave her a little hug. "I really wish the summer could go on forever though, everything's so much easier without school."

Eric could see the entrance to the sitting room coming up while saying, "Wow, I'm finishing up middle school in the 8th grade next year." Blaze was tagging along to Eric as Eric was tagging along to Roxie, it is strange what a small piece of food can do. Roxie was about to say something else, but Wes handed both of them backpacks in a hurry.

"Sorry kids, I thought I would have time to get you all set up, but something came up last second. There's a map and some an instructions in your backpack and you two can read, so you should be fine," Wes said as he started to jog out of the house. He stopped in mid jog and looked back at Roxie. "Oh, and help him out with that suit, there should be PDAs in those bags," he said to Roxie with a wink before jogging out again.

Eric looked at himself to be sure that he put everything on correctly, Blaze was looking for an imperfection too. Suddenly, in his jacket pocket, he found a small wire. It looked like it was meant for hooking up to a computer or something. Suddenly, Roxie had the wire in her hand and it was attached to a PDA.

"Don't worry, I'm just making it a little easier to travel in the desert with this," she said while slinging Florina back over her shoulder and staring down at the screen. She was picking out what outfit the suit would become, so she just decided that she would just pick what she thought would look cutest on him…

Slowly yet surely, the suit changed into a black leather jacket, a very dark gray shirt, and a pair of very dark blue jeans. The clothes felt just as comfortable, and they looked just as good on him as the suit had. He looked into a mirror just to be sure that that had really happened. As Roxie pulled her PDA out, he asked, "How… what the heck is this thing?", with confused written all over his face.

Roxie tapped the touch screen on the PDA and looked at a Word docent, the instructions to the mission that they were supposed to go on. "Oh, just a nice thing Wes ordered, its good when your environment suddenly changes… plus it's resistant to almost everything and you don't have to pack any clothes. Hmm…. It says here that breakfast is waiting for us in the dining room, we'll travel to some stand in the south, and then we can make our way to the base where the kid who thwarted the Shadow Operation last year saw these guys. There are Shadow Visors in case we run into any Shadow Pokemon too." Roxie looked farther down the list and suddenly blurted out, "And he says I have to battle with Blaze and you have to battle with Florina so we get used to sharing Pokemon and items…"

Blaze hoped at the word battle and Eric laughed at him. Eric dug around in a "Oh well, fist things come first… Breakfast!" he screamed as he ran down the hallway to the dining room. Blaze and Roxie just stood there for a couple moments, blinking. Suddenly they realized what was going on and ran off after him.

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Sidenotes:  
-Roxie is 15, going onto 10th grade.  
-Eric is 13, going onto 8th grade.  
-I may add some more gadgets in the future, so don't think that the Shadow Visor, the PDA, and the Morph Suits are everything.


	7. Chapter 7: D: 001 and S: 001

Chapter 7: D: 001 and S:001

Eric wandered out of the mansion with Florina lying on his neck, sleeping. Warmth seeped into his body from the furry little Pokemon; Eric could see why her trainer adored her so much. During breakfast, Eric and Roxie went over their Pokemon's attacks and abilities, hoping to find a decent battle strategy. Eric found that no matter which Pokemon partner he had, he would have a trouble with battles. Roxie seemed confused and always drifted back to tactics for Florina when they were trying to build up plans for Blaze.

Roxie came out next, with Blaze wobbling behind her with his arms behind his head. Just to make sure this was really happening, she looked down at Blaze. She later regretted this because out of the overgrown chicken's mouth came an obnoxious burp loud enough to drag a Snorlax out of its slumber. Normally Roxie would have burst out in laughter, but the horrid stench was wafting up into her nose. "I'm glad this arrangement isn't permanent…," mumbled Roxie as he gave wandered back to Eric.

There were two hover-scooters waiting for the pair right at the end of the sidewalk leading up to the house. Roxie was going to lift the rude Combusken into its sidecar, but it scrambled away and hoped in all by it self. Okay, maybe it was a good idea for her to learn how different Pokemon could be since she could end up with another one like Blaze… Eric gently and gracefully plucked the ferret-like Pokemon off of his shoulders and put her in his sidecar. Together they flew off into the burning sands of Orre, and started to race to the diner where they would eat lunch.

There was no denying the fact that Roxie had stopped in front of the Outskirt Stand, but Eric sure did have a fun time arguing about Roxie with it right up until they entered the little establishment on the side of the road. Eric and Roxie only stopped because the owner smiled and whispered to one of the cooks, "Cute couple, huh?"

The cook looked over to the 'couple' smiled smugly, and whispered back, "I think they heard you." They had heard him, as if his booming voice was being broadcast all over a schools public announcement system. Eric sat with Florina and Roxie sat with Blaze at a different table. Neither of the humans wanted to admit their affections for each other, so they sat at separate tables. After Florina was done with her chef salad and the other three inhaled their Moo Moo Miltank hamburgers, the foursome left, not daring to say a word to one another.

While it had taken them about three hours to drive deep into the south to the conveniently placed diner, it only took them about an hour to go from the diner to the old, broken down Shadow Lab… Eric parked his scooter first, and parked it behind an old, broken, spherical machine. As Eric pulled Florina out of the sidecar again, Roxie parked her scooter and checked to make sure that sand hadn't gotten in Blaze's eyes or anything similar to that. All four of them were fine though; so Eric asked, "Ready to go in?", as he pulled Florina around the back of his neck.

Roxie let out a sigh of relief, she though they might not ever talk again after the awkwardness that they had experienced in the Outskirt Stand. "It shouldn't be too bad, right? It says right here in the directions that we only need to see if the 'Rainbros' are still using this place and battle only if necessary..." Roxie said with a smile coming back to her face.

Eric walked up to the main door of the lab and grabbed the handle, cautiously in case it could active some kind of booby trap. Florina instinctively hopped of Eric's shoulder and got in battle stance. Slowly but surely, he turned the knob and entered into the lab with the creak of the door swinging right behind him. All around him all Eric saw were pieces of odd, silvery equipment and monitors with Pokemon and dark purple auras shining around them. There was nothing new on them though, he had seen all of these Pokemon on television after all of the records from this place were found.

Roxie ran in behind hi, tripped, and ended up hugging him around the shoulders to support herself from falling. There was no time for her to let go before she saw it, a man in an obnoxious yellow latex suit and mask fell onto her left and Blaze ran in on her right. Eric saw another man fall down; he was in green, but he could hardly make out the color of his hideous suit in this dim lighting…

The man in green said, "Halt and sate your business or prepare to leave!" Without even a second's notice he tossed out a Pokeball, and Eric could not believe what had appeared. It was one of the Electabuzz that he had seen earlier, but there was something distinctively different about it… Eric saw a silver-gray aura around it with bits of pieces of green.

The man in the yellow let out a sigh and said, "Forget it, lets just battle 'em and if they are here to help us, we'll just scoop 'em up when we're done." This guy just dropped the Pokeball off of his belt and caught it as it bounced back up. Eric noticed it as the second Electabuzz that took his parents away, but the Shadow Visor flew out over Roxie's let eye and let her see the aura of a Pokemon who cannot feel any more. Roxie did not notice that she was still holding onto Eric while her voice rang out, "Get in here Blaze!"

With the same conviction and forgetfulness Eric ordered, "Florina, lets get ready to fry those jerks! The Electabuzz on the right!" The Furret knew that this was a signal for a Fire helpful hand because of the plans it was included in earlier this morning, but she did deviate from the plan a bit. Instead of riding on the flame jets as she had before, she ran over to a carton of gasoline in a corner, picked it up, and dumped it all over the Delta Electabuzz. Before Roxie took her turn, Eric was sure to say, "It's a Delta, Grass and Steel."

Neither of the too realized that Roxie was still hugging Eric, so the battle went on and a smile curled all around Roxie's face. She would be able to pull off what Eric had last battle, a hit on a Pokemon with double weakness and help from a partner Pokemon. For a moment she hesitated, but she knew she had to try for the most damage she could. "Fire Blast!" came her cry to Blaze. Blaze was just as unsure as his trainer for the day, but it took in a deep breath and released a puff of red-hot fire large enough to swallow up a Wailord. The attack hit dead on and most likely did some extra damage because of the gasoline. The Delta Electabuzz suffered severe Burns form the attack that could have lasted for the rest of the battle, but it slapped out the flames erupting all over its fur. Right before their opponents had a chance to attack, Roxie whispered to Eric, "You have a Snag Machine in your suit, Wes told us to take any Delta Pokemon, but I think he wouldn't mind if we helped out a Shadow too."

The man in yellow laughed and said, "Aw, Greon, look, the lovebirds are whispering sweet nothings into each other's ears!" That was when Roxie finally noticed it, flashed pink, and took a swift step back. Eric liked the extra warmth and protection he felt in that hug, but he had to go on with the battle. "Give that rat a Shadowbolt!" growled the dastardly trainer. The Shadow Electabuzz rubbed its hand's together eagerly, then punched out a Flash of purple substance at Florina that buzzed all around her body and left her severely damaged.

Greon's laughter bounced off the walls of the old, forgotten lab and he barely managed to worm out, "Sunny Day!" to his Delta Electabuzz. No dobut he was trying to get ready for a Solar Beam with type-bonus, but it would never work. If anything, the attack would aid Blaze's Fire type attacks. "Yellon, this battle is gonna be a piece of cake!" he ridiculed. He quieted down a bit, though, when he saw his Pokemon flinch from its burns.

Roxie dug around in her backpack and pulled out a blue Pokeball with an odd design, a Great Ball. She tossed over to her partner and he caught it with extreme ease. Eric cold feel a wire in his suit poking into a hole of the Great Ball to exchange information on changing the original trainer number of the Pokemon he was about to catch. Once the wire disappeared back to its place in the suit, Eric threw it out with Great force at the Delta Elecatbuzz. The Pokemon was scooped up in a dim read light and the Pokeball bounced into the center of the battlefield. Greon starred, bewildered as the Pokeball wiggled thrice, then flew back into the child's hands. Eric smirked and stuck his tongue out at his opponent as he slapped the Great Ball onto his belt.

While Yellon was also stuck in the moment of the capture, Roxie had her chance to attack. Wes had told her something about Special Conditions being very immensely useful, so she decided she would accept his advice. "Dynamic Punch!" yelped out the cute girl to the beefed-up chicken. Blaze ran up to the remaining Electabuzz to deliver the punch and wobbled a bit so it might confuse the opponent on contact. Unfortunately the wobbling made the attack easier to avoid and Electabuzz dashed off to the left.

The Shadow Electabuzz flared up in a reddish-purple haze as Greon ran out of the lab and screamed, "Dang, Yellon, go on… I have to report D: 001's capture." Roxie and Eric weren't really listening though, all their attention was locked onto the Electabuzz that spilled out negative energy. The Pokemon had obviously entered Hyper Mode, causing the Pokemon to hurt itself but also allowing it to have a batter critical hit ratio.

A hideous, bone-chilling smile sprang onto Yellon's face; he realized that he could still win this battle … "A'ight, lets give 'em another round of Shadowbolt, why don't we! Shock the rat again!" This time Electabuzz analyzed its opponent before attacking and found the pace where, if the attack struck it, the 'rat' would be hurt the most. It rubbed its hands together as it did before, and sent out a burst shadow-like electricity that struck Florina right in the stomach. Florina reeled back in pain, but she winced and wen on with the battle.

Eric was ready to take his turn in the melee, and he would make the best of it. Just like Roxie he remembered Wes's advice and through the massive planning session during breakfast he remembered an attack that would be perfect. "Florina, lets try a Body Slam!" squeaked out Eric's energetic voice. The ferret was quit tired of being called a ran now, so it quickly swerved up to the Pokemon with its heart closed of to the world and jetted right into its stomach. Before the Electabuzz had a chance to strike, Florina scampered back to Eric. Eric looked over to the Electabuzz, but it was not paralyzed as he had hoped.

A curse flew out of Roxie's mouth, a particularly bad one, and she silently thew her hand over her mouth. She had realized that Eric took a risk and failed, so she would have to take a risk once more. While slowly taking her hand away from her face, Roxie mumbled, "Another go-around with the Dynamic Punch," The Combusken wobbled up to the opponent again, but this tame at a quicker pace. He even scooted to the left and delivered the punch when the Electabuzz tried to dodge.

The attack sent the Shadow Pokemon literally spinning. When it finally stopped in mid-turn, it was so dizzy that swirls could be seen in its eyes. "Finish 'em off with another Shadowbolt!" hollered Yellon at the top of his lungs. Shadow Electabuzz, however, hit himself with the attack because he thought he was aiming at Florina. His vision still had not returned from that lovely spin it took.

So that Yellon would not even have a chance to react, Roxie quietly slipped another Great Ball into Eric's hands. He held onto it until he felt the wire click out of it again. This time he tossed the ball as if it was a bowling ball, but at the last second flicked it into the air. The ball made contact with the fur of the poor Pokemon and scooped it up without one wiggle. Yellon stared for a few moments, then ran off after screaming, "I will get S: 001 back!"

Eric went to pick up his catch and Roxie just stood there, thinking. The pair they had just battled with was obviously here to get some kind of Shadow Pokemon information… Plus there was a new Shadow Operation going on… or was it a Delta Operation? Or could they really be doing both at the same time? One thing was sure; they would have an interesting mission report to give to Wes.

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Sidenotes:

-YellonYellow Peon

-GreonGreen Peon

-S-series(S: 001)Shadow Pokemon

-D-series(D: 001)Delta Pokemon

-Because I think I may forget them myself, I will now make move lists for all Pokemon that appear.

- D: 001/Electabuzz

1. Sunny Day

- S: 001/Electabuzz

1. Shadowbolt

- Florina/Furret

1. Helping Hand

2. Surf

3. Body Slam

- Blaze/Combusken

1. Flamethrower

2. Fire Blast

3. Sky Uppercut

4. Dynamic Punch

-Shoot, I just realized that Moonfire and Sunshine would have to have move sets too. Xx Their attacks may fluctuate...


	8. Chapter 8: So, what now?

Chapter 8: "So, what now?"  
Eric and Roxie slipped around the lab quietly so as not to attract the attention of more 'Colorons' as they decided to call the two latex-clad men they had just defeated. Nothing at all was found in the uncoordinated lurking but a ring of no dust around on a dusty deck. With a bit of thought, Eric concluded that the ring was from a disk and that the Colorons had really just come for some information. As the pair strolled peacefully out of the run-down lab, Eric asked, "So what now?"

"You send a report to Wes," Roxie answered as she handed over her PDA to him. "And I'll help that Electabuzz you snagged earlier," she said before she somehow plucked the right Great Ball out of Eric's hands. She tossed out the Great Ball, and the Shadow Visor flew out over her eye again to show just how dangerous the Pokemon was. It was worse than what she had seen in the news and what she imagined from her sister's descriptions. The Pokemon seemed to glow in a purple-red haze that consumed and corrupted its so its soul. So that she could stand to look at the Electabuzz any longer, Roxie took the visor off and slipped it into her backpack.

Never in his life had Eric used a PDA, but it seemed easy enough. He was up to the e-mail manager when he suddenly drew a blank on Wes's email address. Roxie had given him the PDA, was he expected to know. After a few moments of fiddling around with the device, Blaze snapped it out of Eric's hands. For a long while, Eric just stood there, confused beyond belief. He looked down at Blaze an the emotion written on his face did not change at all. The chicken was typing, and if that wasn't enough, it was in proper English! Eric stared in wonder, but the strangeness soon lost its novelty. He wandered over to Roxie and sad down on a wrecked machine near her.

Roxie was incessantly whistling to the Electabuzz and calling out its name. Slowly yet surely the Electabuzz stomped over to her and looked at her wide-eyed and confused. In the soothing voice she had used when Eric first met her, Roxie said to the poor Pokemon, "Relax, I'm just going to give you a massage." Out of her backpack she pulled a bottle with a strong fragrance that wafted up into Eric's nostrils. It was cologne, Eric could tell because his father used to wear the same brand every day. "Why are you giving it a massage to it?" Eric asked with the most curious of eyes.

Roxie couldn't help but let her eyes wander over to Eric, it was always a treat for her eyes. In the brief time she spent with him, she found him to be a nice enough human being, plus Florina adored him. Florina only ever made friends with Roxie, Rui, and Wes before, and for pride, she never took battle orders from anyone else but Eric and Roxie. "Oh, it just makes a Pokemon relaxed and more comfortable with other… well, living things in general, exactly what you need to open up a Shadow's heart," she said as Florina gracefully hoped into Eric's lap.

"Wow, I never would have thought of it like that… but it does make sense. Um… Is Blaze supposed to know how to type?" Eric asked while he began to pet the Furret. It was odd to feel those mesh-like fins every time he passed his hands through, but he got accustomed to it.

Roxie chuckled and dripped the fragrant liquid onto her hands. "Oops, I forgot about that. Blaze used to be strictly information-gathering agent, without a trainer. He must be pretty good and summing up missions by now," she said as she did what seemed to be tugging on the dynamo's shoulders and rubbing the cologne on him. As the Pokemon let out a joyous sigh of relieved stress, Roxie looked back over to Eric who bore a bored expression. After tossing an plastic toy Pokeball to Eric, she smiled at him and said, "Why don't you play with Florina and the other Electabuzz?"

Eric almost fell as he caught the ball and Florina who started to stumble off of his lap. "Won't they be exhausted from the battle though?" he asked as he looked down at the snoozing ferret-Pokemon that was laying on him. He figured that the Electabuzz had been fairly worn out too, it would have to have received a good load of damage to be caught by a mere Great Ball.

"There should be a few potions in your bag… They aren't as good as what we could get at a Pokemon Center, but they should last until we can get to one," replied Roxie while she continued the massage.

Eric pulled out two bottles of spray marked 'Super Potion' and sprayed its contents on Florina. Happily startled, Florina popped up and licked Eric's face. The Furret's tongue tickled his face, and he fell into the warm sand, laughing. He managed to settle Florina down long enough to toss out the Great Ball of the Delta Electabuzz. This Pokemon was much more sociable than the Shadow that looked almost exactly like it. With the utmost of ease it let Eric spray the Super Potion on it too. It even played with Florina and Eric, and didn't hurt either of them.

So the routine went on for about an hour. Roxie soothed and calmed the poor Pokemon with the closed heart, Eric tossed the toy ball with Electabuzz and Florina, and Blaze stood impatiently with the PDA in his hands. When Roxie finally returned the Electabuzz back to its Great Ball to sleep the PDA rang out. The Combusken was startled; so he dropped the PDA in the sand and ran around incessantly repeating, "Com-bus! Com-bus!" Eric took a break from playing and returned Blaze and the second Electabuzz. When he looked at the PDA, a message from Wes was displayed across the screen. Roxie picked up Florina and cradled her in her arms. As she approached Eric, she asked, "So what does it say?"

Eric quickly skimmed over the message and replied, "Not much, just congratulating us for a mission well done and giving us a new one," As he read further on in the message, he gulped and said, "Our next mission is on a showboat… He found out the trainer ID's of those 2 guys from the Snag Machine changing it to my trainer ID, and those guys made reservations on the showboat. Wes still hasn't found someone to fund this project though, so he got us jobs on the ship. We're understudy singers in the show…" Although he did not like to admit it, Eric was a decent singer… He just had a problem with singing in public.

Roxie was one of the most horrible singers in Orre. She had even been kicked out of her chorus class once because the class wanted to see if they could sound at least mediocre without her. Because of her lack of singing talents, she chose to ignore most anything she heard about it. "It sounds nice…" she whispered as she thought of all the romantic movies she had seen that were set on boats or ships or any other type of sea vessel; there were almost too many to count.

Sensing what Roxie was thinking of, Eric instinctively blushed. He hadn't had the best of luck in his romantic prospects either… he had never even asked a girl to date him. Eric almost wished that Roxie would show no more signs of liking him so he wouldn't screw up their partnership by saying something stupid on the boat. With all of his thoughts concentrated on Roxie and the boat, Eric barely noticed that Florina was crawling onto his shoulders. Roxie saw this and thought, There's no ignoring it, Florina's a good judge of character, and laughed. Eric heard the laughing and snapped back into reality. After giving Florina a little pet, he handed her back to Roxie. "Well, we better set out to Gateon Port now. Do you know the way?"

Roxie put Florina in her sidecar while saying, "Yep, its a long way's ride from here, about the same time it took to get to that dinner from Wes's. At worst we should be there at about," and she paused to look at the Nintendours watch wrapped tightly around her left wrist, " five thirty." Roxie saddled up on her scooter and said, "Meet you there?"

Eric just nodded and smiled as he climbed up onto his own scooter. They both put away all of the gadgets that had helped them in the past few hours and rode off into the western, greener portion of Orre. Along the way, they noticed subtle differences in the environment that told the pair that hey were heading in the right direction. There were actually some wild Pokemon, though most of them were bug and grass type. When they finally reached their destination, the sun was just setting.

Eric was the first to get off his scooter and park it next to the steps that led into the port. He had always liked it here. There was some hustle-and-bustle because of the ships that passed through, but it wasn't nearly as rowdy as Pyrite. He looked upon the showboat he was sure that he and Roxie would soon be boarding with wide-eyed wonder. It was enormous, there was no way they would find the Colorons again… unless they were stupid enough to walk around in public with their costumes.

As Roxie walked up beside him, she noticed some blondie staring right into Eric's eyes, although he did not seem to notice her at all. With a touch of annoyance, she pulled Eric's arm around her shoulder. The girl, startled, walked away quickly and Eric's face flared up like a flame being fed. Eric could tell that this was going to be a long ride.

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Side Notes:  
- Expect the blondie to come back in the next chapter. .  
- Expect another battle in the next chapter. :3 Or if I can't get to it, the chapter after that.


	9. Chapter 9: Title Inside

Chapter 9: The Trap Placed by Unofficial Dating

After only four days of practicing their songs and rehearsing in case they should actually need to be tossed into the musical, Eric and Roxie were almost at their wits' ends. The actor that held the part that Eric was understudying, on their second day on the ship, feel violently ill, rendering him completely able to fulfil his part. Eric spent the rest of that day in a singing frenzy. The part he was filling in for was simple, there were few lines and only one song, but the focus was on him for the entire song. If enough stress wasn't dumped on him then, he had just enough when he discovered that his part involved a Pokemon partner… and he had no training at all with any of the other actor's Pokemon. The act would be in one day, so he would have to teach either the Delta Electabuzz or Blaze all of the complicated steps and twists of the dance that came packaged with the song. With the Electabuzz, he knew he would have someone joyful and amusing to the crowd, but Blaze was a tad more serious and able to learn. As he sat on a bench next to Roxie, he continually flipped over his options in his mind without finding a clear solution. 

Roxie, meanwhile, was troubled by a completely different dilemma. On the first two days, Eric and Roxie had been 'unofficially' dating, unofficially because neither of them wanted to admit that they were in a relationship. They did all sorts of couple things that most respectable people would not have done otherwise, such as taking goofy pictures in a photo-booth or just sitting somewhere and whispering 'sweet nothings' into each other's ear. Out of the corner of her eyes, though, Roxie could always see that annoying blond fair-haired girl that had stared at Eric upon their night of arrival. On top of her passionate desire to slam this bimbo's face in, she had to settle Eric down whenever he was getting to nervous about his performance. It wasn't hard at all to reassure him after she heard his singing voice, it was clear and soothing, but his confidence in his ability and his phobia of public speaking were another story.

The stage director, Martha, dragged both of them out of their problems with her demanding voice. She had short, lime green hair, and there was rarely a moment when anyone could find her wearing one of her gray pantsuits. "I said break for dinner, I don't want to have my back-up Henrietta and Anthony worn out tomorrow," she ordered as she pushed them off on their merry way. Seeing as they were 'unofficially' dating' Eric and Roxie walked hand-in-hand down to the kitchen of one of the fancier restaurants on board the ship.

There they met the most masterful of master chefs, Sidmound the Scizor. Although the glare from this Pokemon's natural metal coating was enough to blind someone in full daylight, this Scizor looked more closely related to its pre-evolutionary form than any other Scizor. He had the same shape as any other, maybe the slightest bit taller, but he looked lime green in every place where he should have been red and dark, forest green in every place that was supposed to be marked black. After slightly adjusting his humorous little chef hat, the large metal bug grabbed two trays, one with a lemon fish fillet and another with a steaming bowl of soup upon it. With a smile upon his face, he handed the plated to Roxie and Eric while saying, "Sciz Scizor or or Sciz," and pointed to some seats away from all the hustle and bustle of the rest of the kitchen.

After giving their thanks, Roxie and Eric sat down in the seats that the kind Scizor had pointed out to them. Roxie ate the fish, and noticed that it had the distinct flavor of Feebas. Although it was in no way good-looking, the fish Pokemon sure did make for a tasty treat. Eric quietly sipped the soup; he could taste small bits of cucber and Bellsprout leaves mixed into the delicious concoction. With in a half in hour, both of them were finished; so they headed back to the theater.

At about half the way there, Roxie asked, "Do you know which one's coming to the show with you yet?" She knew the choice was bothering him, but she had not asked earlier for fear of throwing him off balance. Not the situation was dire, though. A Pokemon partner needed to be chosen right away so that the next day the Pokemon could learn the steps to the dance. Besides, she thought she might be able to lend a hand.

Eric sighed before replying, "I was thinking about taking either the Delta Electabuzz or Blaze onto stage with me. The only problem is that Electabuzz seems to lax, but Blaze seems too business like to at least look like he's having fun up on stage. I didn't even consider S: 001, it's not even right in the heart yet."

Roxie shook her head as she said, "Don't forget what Wes told us, we have to get used t sharing the Pokemon. Florina seems to obey you well enough, and she's not all business like Blaze. Why don't you teach her; she's a fast learner?" After a second of digging into her pocket, Roxie produced Florina's Pokeball and tossed it over to Eric.

Eric looked the ball over as if it was a diamond and he was inspecting it for flaws. He was actually baffled about why he himself had not thought of that at all. With a nod and a smile he accepted the Pokeball and slipped it into his jacket pocket. "You know what… I think I'm really gonna be able to do this," he said, the smile still clinging to his face.

Roxie had hardly any time to notice though, she saw that horrible blond girl, just standing there among all the hustle and bustle of the other people onboard the showboat, staring at them. "I'm sure you will," she said with her normal angelic smile back to him. "Uh… I need to go grab something, go on ahead to the theater without me," she said. As Eric shrugged and trudged on, Roxie approached the girl. Unfortunately, a very large man with a bucket of Torchic wings blocked her view once, and she lost track. When she finally found the place where she thought she saw the hussy. In the girl's place was a cute little Bulbasuar with a dark spot shaped like a star on its forehead. With an exasperated stomp on the ground, she asked the little Grass Pokemon, "Did you see a really stupid-looking girl around here?"

The Bulbasuar merely shook its head and said, "Blu…dit…Bulba," with some obvious strain. A chirp like call ran though the air, the sound of a trainer whistling to its Pokemon. The Bulbasuar quickly took off with one final, estimating look at Roxie. Profoundly confused, Roxie walked back to meet up with Eric and practice her lines.

After a night of twirling around canes and practicing singing, the Furret and its co-trainer were exhausted. Roxie returned Florina to her ball and with great care escorted Eric to the room that they were staying in onboard the ship. It took Eric no less then five minutes to get comfortable in his bed and slip into a deep sleep. Roxie however stayed up late into the night trying to figure out how to solve her problems with that stupid girl. Her body caught up with her in the wee hours of the morning, though, and forced her into slumber.

The next day was just intense practice for Eric and Florina, while Roxie just watched from one of the seats that the audience would have normally occupied. She was quite content, she was able to help Eric out immensely and she hadn't seen head or tail of the wicked witch that was stalking them for the entire day.

It was four o' clock, just one hour from show time, when Roxie saw the girl walk into the theater. This time the girl did not disappear, she just gave Roxie a nasty sneer and waved at her. After checking to make sure Eric wasn't looking, Roxie growled and ran up to the girl. The girl quickly ran out the door, only making Roxie's desire to chase he heighten.

The wild goose chase took many twists and turns, it even lead into Sidmound's kitchen. When Roxie thought she finally had the girl after she hesitantly slowed down before turning a corner, but what she found when she turned that corner was herself face-to-face with another Coloron. It a white suit that was wrapped on just a little too tightly around its body. This one was different though, it was most definitely a girl, and she had… blonde hair coming out of the back her mask! No wonder, thought Roxie, the other guys must still have come on this ship, noticed me, and pointed their stupid friend out to me. She wasn't stalking us because of Eric… she wanted to get one of us alone to take us out. Gah, I fell right into the trap!

"Humph, you're so predictable. All you need is a little tease to drag you out here. Now you're little knight in shining armor isn't here to save you, and I'll kick your sorry little butt," said, the girl who was presumably Whiteon. She tossed out one Pokeball, and out of it appeared a glob of sticky-looking purple goo with a face, a Ditto. The next Pokemon that appeared was so round that it barely looked like it had limbs, it was a Jigglypuff.

Plus… That Bulbasuar, it must have been that Ditto that she has, thought Roxie. What Roxie really thought was odd was that her Shadow Visor did not go off for either of these Pokemon… That was until she realized that the visor was no longer on her head. With a grumble she pulled the visor out of her pockets and strapped it back on to see that both Pokemon had purple auras that indicated a closed heart around them. "Pfft, more like I'll plow through you before you can even touch me," said Roxie as she pulled Pokeball from her pocket. However, she knew well enough that this was going to be a tough battle. 

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Side Notes:  
-I know I'm concentrating a bit heavily on Roxie... but don't worry, Eric will get a solo too eventually.   
-Be ready for my own made-up Shadow Move(s?) next chapter. . 


	10. Chapter 10: One Step Closer

Chapter 10: One Step Closer 

Roxie tossed out two occupied Great Balls, the only ones she had with her. Out of them appeared two muscular, almost human-shaped Pokemon with large electrical antennae that also acted as ears and light, bushy yellow furs with black stripes shaped like thunderbolts. Shadow attacks were nothing new to her, Wes recalled many a tale about battling them in his stories, but figuring out how to work around special needs like calling them back from Hyper Mode was something else entirely. At least she had time to figure out the Pokemon's moves, devices such as the Pokedex, the Pokenav, or the PDA could do such things while linked up to an occupied Pokeball. Roxie had no time to make the first attack though.

Whiteon, on her feet and was smug about Roxie's confusion, shouted out, " 008, Shadow Morph the Electabuzz on the left!" The little blot of purple goo looked as if it was not even controlling its body while it hopped up in the air and let part of itself fly off, then onto S: 001. That little blob did nit land anywhere near its target, the Electabuzz was protected by the aura that closed him of from nearly all feelings. Whiteon stared in her own confusion, but Roxie knew she didn't have anymore time to think.

Roxie also knew that a Shadow attack would not be very effective against another Shadow Pokemon; she had just seen it first hand. So, the smartest thing to do in this situation would be using the first attack that Electabuzz unlocked after the massage that he got. Hoping that the Colorons hadn't shared enough information to stop Whiteon's disorientation, Roxie said, "S: 001, let there be light," while trying to restrain a giggle. It didn't help at all that the Shadow Electabuzz started dancing around in something that looked like organized chaos. When the little ditty was done, it was noticeable brighter on the deck of the ship.

Whiteon had gathered her wits back up, but Roxie was much to fast for her. The attack that Roxie was about to ask the Grass and Steel type Electabuzz to perform next almost sent her into a state of shock when she first saw it. Normally Electabuzz could come nowhere close to figuring out this special little trick, but Roxie then remembered that the scientists of Holon had started to design special Technical Machines to teach moves to Delta Pokemon that wouldn't naturally come to them. The only annoying thing about these 'Delta TMs' were that Pokemon could only know one Delta TM move at once. "I have a feeling that Ditto's going to give us problems… Try a Solar Beam out on it Buzz," Through its antennae, Electabuzz absorbed as much solar power as it could, and that was only helped by the Sunny Day. Out of the antennae came to beautiful yet dangerous green beams that hit 008 right in the stomach… or did its organs even consistently stay in one place?

Whiteon was no longer confused now that she knew which ugly yellow rug thing was a Delta and which one was a Shadow. "Shadow End, 007!" demanded the scantily dressed villain as Roxie remembered about James Bond and chortled. The little puff of pink curled up into a ball with a blank stare on its face. Soon it gained a 'force field' of pure Shadow Power around it and started ferociously rolling toward D: 001, or Buzz as Roxie had earlier called him. Luckily the 'rug's' reflexes were about as sharp as a pin head and he was able to send the Jigglypuff rolling back with no more than a poke to its belly.

With a sly grin, Whiteon said, "Eh, no worries, now you get to see the real power of," and she took a pause for emphasis and to confirm to the Ditto that she wanted it to attack ," Shadow Morph!" The Ditto was not at all idiotic enough to not know that if it tried the same attack on the same Pokemon it would fail, so this time when it jumped and detached a blob from itself, its aim was at Buzz. Buzz may have been quick on his feet, but the blob was to big for him to run from. The liquid seeped into his skin, and for a moment it looked as if nothing would happen. In a few moments, however, the Electabuzz looked like a puddle of purple goo with eyes.

Roxie panicked and linked the Great Ball that had held D: 001 to her PDA. Under the status section, she noticed that there was a special condition, but it was "Unidentifiable". When she looked over to the attack and type columns, though, she was baffled. It seemed that the only attack that Buzz knew anymore was Transform. The type readout said that he was Normal type… but it also had the word 'temporary' before it. This could just work to Roxie's advantage…

There were other things to concentrate on though, like what a Shadow would do against other Shadows that were practically immune to his attacks. Figuring that it would better to do something rather than lose a turn, Roxie asked, "Wanna try a Shadow Mist, S:001?" The first Pokemon in the S-Series grinned and let out a breath of an odd substance that dulled the reflexes of his opponents, thereby lowering their evasiveness. Although she didn't know it, Roxie was setting herself up far a prosperous next turn.

Now Roxie was going to make the second link to that amazing turn. Roxie knew that having a Ditto Transform into a Ditto would be completely boring and fruitless. That would leave Jigglypuff… or, maybe, "Buzz, Transform into your partner," she said, confident in her choice, but not completely sure about what would happen. Buzz suddenly took the form that he had before, and a new readout appeared on the PDA. There was still a 'temporary' next to the type, but the type was now Thunder. Buzz's attacks were now Sunny Day, Thunderbolt, Dynamic Punch, and Thunder Wave. Could these attacks be S: 00's after he was purified?

Whiteon blushed, feeling almost too stupid to go on. Now that Buzz was morphed, she couldn't work the attack again and it would just slide off of the Shadow. At least she could do same damage with 007. "Give that Morph another Shadow End!" screeched the blondie. It absorbed the dark energy, and this time successfully rolled into its target, and unluckily for both Pokemon, Buzz was critically hit. Bond flew back and took one eighth of the damage that it inflicted while Buzz took an attack that did four times the amount of damage that it was intended to. The peon used her turn with 008 to heal Agent Bond with a potion.

Roxie decided that this turn was going to be completely offensive. She knew that it wouldn't do much damage, but to the Shadow Electabuzz she said, "Ready to zap that marshmallow?" It seemed that S: 001 liked the little puns that Roxie had for its attacks as much as she did. Through its antennae, the Electabuzz drew in pure power similar to the Jigglypuff's and sent it right into the balloon Pokemon with a ripple of electricity, but it hardly effected the Pokemon.

This was where the Shadow mist and transformation would help out the most. Roxie had loved using this attack with Blaze, and she hoped that it would be just as adequate as it had been with the fowl. "Spin Jigglypuff with a Dizzy Punch!" squealed Roxie energetically. Buzz ran straight up to the Jigglypuff, he obviously had a different way of performing this attack Blaze did. Ad the last second, Buzz slipped to the side and delivered the punch that sent the spherical Pokemon spinning. Once it finally stopped (after it ran into a metal bar) the Jigglypuff wobbled back to its proper spot. The attack most likely would not have hit without the substance that Shadow Mist emitted last turn.

Nothing spectacular happened on the skank's turn, however. When the Jigglypuff tried to use a Shadow Rush attack, it slammed itself in the face. The Ditto spat out a little puddle of slime onto S: 001 that did absolutely nothing at all. That turn spelt the end for her career in crime.

Although Eric had not noticed in the least, Roxie too was wearing a morph suit with a Snag Machine linked into the selves. She was able to throw two Pokeballs in one turn, not because her Snag Machine did not have to charge, but because there was one machine in each arm. Each capture device trapped the misused Pokemon and flew right back into Roxie's hands. This time, the Peon would not get away. Buzz let out a weak jolt of electricity to paralyze the girl, and she fell to the floor. Roxie complimented both of Electabuzz and returned them to their proper Great Balls. Buzz's readout was finally normal… or at least as normal as a Delta Pokemon's statistics could be.

Although this showboat had bedroom for its employees, it did not leave dock and contained no bedding for guests. Roxie let Buzz back out so that he could carry the white latex-clad girl into the police station. She turned the girl in, and so that they would have a better chance at government funding for this mission, Roxie revealed to the police that she was part of Wes's company. The officers that such a pretty and fragile looking girl was able to take down a powerful criminal, against Shadow Pokemon nonetheless.

Roxie did not forget about the Pokemon though. After her long visit to the police station, she rushed over to the Pokemon Center, not because she needed a certified nurse's help, but because she needed the right equipment to hurt two badly damaged Pokemon and two Pokemon with minor cuts and bruises. Luckily the nurse in Gateon Port knew her fairly well and let her go right on into the back room. It took nearly forty-five minutes for Roxie to heal all of the wounds, but the Pokemon were all as good as new.

Just as she was walking out of the Pokemon Center, it dawned on Roxie that she had probably missed the beginning of Eric's show by now. As fast as she could, she dashed onboard the showboat and into the theater. There was barely any trouble because almost every living being on board was in the theater to see the show that Eric was in. When Roxie finally burst through the doors, Eric and Florina were just taking their places on stage. She waved to them, and they didn't wave back, but they both looked one thousand times more relaxed.

And so Eric went on, sinning a tune about how to get rich in his brilliant black suit (which Roxie could have sworn was the morph suit and not his real costume) while swinging around a cane and tapping it on the stage. The funniest part, though, was that Florina was copying all of his movement and she too was wearing a suit and a cane. She was also wearing one o the smallest top hats that Roxie had ever seen. After their performance was over, the whole audience clapped like there was no tomorrow… except a group of ten that was sitting way up in the back of the theatre… but no one really cared about them.

After the entire show was over, Roxie ran backstage to congratulate Eric and Florina. Much to Eric's surprise, she smothered him in one enormous hug. "You were amazing!" she praised, "and in front of all of those people!" She finally let go of Eric and took Florina off his shoulders.

"Ugh, don't remind me. I still think I might throw up," said Eric as he carefully rubbed his stomach. "I'm glad you got back in time to see it though," he said with a delighted grin. "What took you so long? Where were you?" Eric asked with a suspicious eye.

Roxie took out all four of the Pokeballs that she possessed that actually contained Pokemon. "It's a long story, but I think that we're one step closer to figuring this all out," she said with a satisfied smiled pulled around her face. And so, Eric leaned in close as she told him about the battle, selectively excluding the fact that the peon was a girl and why she got into the battle in the first place.

By the next day, Whiteon spilled out her guts about the 'Rainbow Armada' as it was called; everything but locations since she supposedly had only been a member for a week and did not have that information. Wes's company was also hired to continue this mission they had to stop the Color Armada and given all the information that the peon had leaked out. In turn, he gave his praise to Roxie and Eric, along with the information that he gathered in a new e-mail. This time they were going to what was thought to be the heart of all crime in Orre, Pyrite City. They decided to quit their singing jobs, and hop of onto the hover scooters into the city and read what Whiteon had disclosed later.

Side Notes:  
-Don't thing Roxie is evil too because she calls Shadow Electabuzz S:001 or 001, remeber, Shadow Pokemon's names can't be changed until they're purified.  
- D:001  
Sunny Day  
Thunder Wave  
Sloar Beam  
- S:001 (aka Shadow Electabuzz) (after purification)  
Sunny Day  
Thunder Wave  
Thunderbolt  
Dynamicpunch  
(right now)  
Shadow Mist  
Shadow Bolt  
-S:008 (aka Shadow Ditto)  
Shadow Morph-(turs attacked Pokemon temporarily into a Ditto. effect ends when Pokemon is returned)  
-S:007 (aka Shadow Jigglypuff)  
Shadow End


	11. Chapter 11: Bait

Chapter 11: Bait  
Without a bit of hesitation, Eric and Roxie leaped off of their scooters and walked into the pile or rusting metal that was Pyrite City. Their bikes would be stolen anyway; there was no security in this town and enough pilferers to snatch it up in the blink of an eye. Pyrite was the only town in Orre where there was so much crime that the police had to overlook such easy thievery and look into schemes to overthrow the government. Yet through all the paranoia, Pyrite seemed to get the most business out of all Orre. They had a shop, a colosseum, heck; there was even a psychic who wasn't just full of it.

Eric knew his way around, he often came into the colossem to sketch some Pokemon in battle, and it was as close to natural that he could get in this region of the world. Roxie hardly ever came into these parts though, she hated how so many people here viewed Pokemon only as tools, and no as the valuable companions that they could be. So, Eric, knowing the layout of the land, led Roxie to a nice little bench outside of the fortuneteller's shop. Together they sat down on the bench and read over anything they left out before arriving. When he was halfway through the file, Eric, as casually as possible, put his arm around Roxie. Unfortunately it just woke up the cute little ferret Pokemon that was there. Eric blushed, took his hand back, and read on.

When they were both finally finished, they looked up at each other; Florina scurried over into Eric's lap, and both Eric and Roxie laughed. While scratching the Furret's stomach a bit, Eric said, "Looks like we get to do an inside job… How did Wes get us into a real gang?"

Roxie's eyes widened, as she responded, "No, no, he and the some other government agencies set these fake gangs up so they could tap into information from the criminal community. There are two different ones that never make the same alliances or enemies so the can cover all the bases."

Eric was about to scratch the back of his head, but caught his hand in mid-scratch and simply ran his hand through his hair. "They would have to do something illegal to be valued by all the other gangs though…" he said, suddenly not so sure that he was on the right side of whatever this fight was. After all, if he joined up with the Colorons, he would probably be able to see his parents… But he knew it wasn't true and fought down the questionable feeling in his gut.

"Wes explained it to me once," continued Roxie, "The police set up fake records for bandits to break into, they always do, and the word of the fake stuff that they do goes around. Sometimes the police and 'gang' members have a 'street brawl'." Then she stood up and stretched, as if to say that she was ready to go; they were supposed to meet the 'gang leader' for orientation soon.

As Eric followed suit and started to walk alongside his unofficial girlfriend, a memory flickered into his mind. "Wait, I remember something like that… Gah, do you mean were going to be Mach Champs?" Although he knew it was fake, a 'battle' that he had seen a few years ago made that gang look… utterly lame. They managed to win, but only because the policemen were inexperienced… or were they just acting that way?

"Is that what your e-mail said? I was assigned to the other team!" Roxie shrieked out in horror. It would be hard to do this mission seperately, even if they were working toward the same goal… plus there were the Pokemon to split up. "Do you think we'll still be able to make contact of some kind?" she asked with a sigh. She should have asked more before she too this summer job.

Eric laughed and whipped out his PDA. "As long as we have these, we can chat any time we want," he said with a delighted shrug. Florina, on his shoulder, stared down at the screen that had the smallest little chat box in the upper left and a huge advertisement all around it.

"Speaking of these nifty little things…" said Roxie as she pulled her own PDA out. She had not taken as long as Eric to read the rest of the e-mail and designed some new clothes for Eric and herself on the Suit designer program. She pulled out the plug in Eric's pocket and hooked it up to the PDA and Eric did not show a single bit of resistance. The shirt did not change much at all, it just became more white than gray. His leather jacket turned into a dark blue windbreaker with brilliant red stripes down the sleeves. The sweat pants that replaced his jeans seemed to have the same color scheme with the red stripes streaming down the sides. When the outfit was all finished uploading, Roxie took her PDA out of Eric's jacket and handed him a blue beanie with a red star on the top, and blue tinted shades.

Eric rather liked this getup; it was the first time he felt comfortable wearing sweats in public. After making a quick look around to make sure no one was around to see the odd change, pulled the funky hat around his had and slipped on the blue shades. There was no one around; it was late in the morning. All the action around Pyrite started up around four thirty in the afternoon and ended early in the morning, at about four o'clock. Eric tilted his shades just enough so that Roxie could see his pupils and in his most excellent impersonation of Elvis said, "Hey babeh." Florina laughed so hard that she fell into one of Eric's jacket pockets.

After blushing and giving Eric a light punch to the shoulder, Roxie plucked Florina out of Eric's pockets and gave her a hug. "I was going to have an outfit that looked kind of like yours, but I guess we're assigned to different teams…" she muttered with a sigh.

"Why do we need new clothes anyway?" Eric asked while rubbing his left shoulder and pushing the glasses back up. Even if he liked it, Eric had to admit that this ensemble was a little odd.

Roxie rolled her eyes; Eric was being just too much of a newbie about this. "They know how we look. If you hide your eyes and hair, they probably won't recognize you if you pass them by again. We want to stay as secretive as possible so we can surprise the Colorons whenever we can," Then she saw him, and she didn't know at all how she knew it was him.

The man standing in front of her was obviously the leader of the Mach Champs. He couldn't have been much younger than Wes, probably nineteen or twenty years old. He had short, curly brown hair and sharp almond eyes. He wore a slightly torn white undershirt and tight blue jeans with a large black belt constricting them to his waist. Behind him smiled a large, muscular, gray Pokemon with a wrestling award-like belt and a friendly smile drawn all over its face. Behind that smile, though, laid raw power and pure potential. After the team stepped up to them, the man asked of Eric and Roxie, "Are you guys Ric and Rox?"

Eric nodded and said, "I guess I'm… Ric?" while suppressing a chuckle. He never thought someone would try to squeeze his name into one syllable.

They guy pulled Eric to the side and said, "Good, now, Rox, you can go right down there," he said while pointing down into an alleyway. Eric watched as a van came and two men, clad in yellow and green latex, ripped the backpack off of Roxie's back, threw it into the ally, and hauled her into a van. He also saw through the horror and out of the corner of his eye that the bulky Pokemon behind him threw a small device onto the back of the van. The guy looked down at Eric, whose face had been pale as a ghost's. "Wait… didn't Wes tell you that Roxie was going to be bait?" asked the man as he plugged a PDA into one of his pockets. Suddenly he was wearing a dazzling black suit with a rose in the front shirt pocket and a top hat.

Eric just shook his head and ran up to the backpack. On the way, he found Florina running up to him, they must have thrown her out a little later… He paced back up to the guy, dragging along the extra backpack and carrying the Furret on his shoulder. To the now formally dressed man, he said, "So… we're gonna go and catch her, right?"

"Man, I forgot how much Wes liked to challenge the new recruits," he said with a shake of the head. "Yea, but we want a definite location so we can take them all down instead of just the ones that you guys washed up. We can sit here a bit and plan your battle strategy a bit, then teleport to wherever we're tracking them. The only thing we know about so far, from that girl that Rox caught, is that there are 1 of these guys for each tier for each type of Pokemon and that there are at least 3 or 4 tiers. So we're hoping that a location will lead us to more. Ah, by the way, my name is Gabe for this little stunt."

Eric moaned, but he was sure with the help of some more professional agents that he would be able to pull Roxie through this. "Wait, teleport? I thought that you were the leader of the Mach Champs, fighting Pokemon," he said as his gaze slipped over to the world-class weightlifting Pokemon, Machamp.

'Gabe' blinked a few times before saying, "Are you sure that Wes was right in the head when he sent you the mission precis? I'm the leader of both the Mach Champs and the Abrakazams; it's really easy with Morph Suits. Its important that we don't invade them as the Mach Champs, they're supposed to be friends with the Rainbros' people, but the Abrakazams are almost their natural enemies." While showing Eric the PDA with the screen still set to the magician suit that Gabe had on, he asked, "So, should I do the honors?" Eric just nodded as the man swapped the designs. Eric got a suit identical to Gabe's, and Gabe got Roxie's work onto his screen; he was going to keep it in case Eric needed it later.

Eric took the Pokeballs out of Roxie's backpack and sighed heavily. Roxie seemed to work really well without him, but she had been with a Pokemon all her life. Eric had just started battle, and had only been in two battles; how would he be as good as Gabe and any of the other 'gang members' that may have been helping out? Maybe with a little bit of courage and help, he told himself… He just hoped that his partner wasn't bugging out too much.

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Side Notes:  
-If you don't understand how Gabe's gonna teleport, its an Alakazam. :3  
-W00t, time for Eric to get some alone time!  
-I may reveal Gabe's real name when this mission is over.  
-I think I may have kind of excluded Pokemon emotionally from this chapter... Meh, I'll try to work in more of Blaze, the 001's, Bond, and S:008 in without making them battle. Florina has been kind of a text hog lately though. almost said camera hog  
-I wanted to use a different word than bugging, but for some reason its filtered out. I didn't think it was a bad word... I'm posting it the normal way on Gaia and 


	12. Chapter 12: Tracking

Chapter 12: Tracking

Gabe looked at the expensive little watch that the Morph Suit had formed around his hand. He had a more advanced version of the suit than Eric had, allowing him to have quite a few accessories and hats in addition to jackets, shoes, pants, shirts, and socks. Along with the design, though, he had uploaded the newer version of the suit software into Eric's suit, and the next time Eric used his PDA to change his outfit, Eric would notice the new program there too. On the watch, Gabe saw ever-changing coordinates for the tracker that his macho Pokemon had tossed onto the back of the van that took Roxie away. They seemed to be nowhere close to stopping, so he turned to Eric and said, "We won't be able to teleport for a while; why don't I help you figure out a strategy with your Pokemon?"

Eric was about to say no, remembering that he and Roxie had sorted all of this out just a few days ago. It dawned on him, however, that he had four new Pokemon to battle with, two of which he had never seen in battle before. So, he nodded again and said, "So what do you need to know?"

With a shrug, Gabe replied, "To start, just toss out all of the guys you have with you, then tell me which ones you would start with, and which ones you would be ideally paired together in battle." This would show how organized Eric was and show if had actually learned anything in his two battles thus far.

Out of his own backpack Eric dug out Blaze's Pokeball and the two Electabuzzs' Great Balls and dropped them out in front of him. They all appeared in a thin, hazy red light, and all of the Pokeballs returned to his hand. While he was trying to drop the capture units back in the bag, Eric noticed that lenses of the glasses that he was wearing, which were now black-tinted instead of blue, were letting him see a purple aura fizzling all around S: 001's body. It wasn't part of the suit before… and neither was the beanie hat that turned into the top hat that he was not wearing. Odd, the suit must have made them part of itself anyway…

"Is that it? What about Rox's?" Gabe asked as Eric dropped the Pokeballs back into his backpack. He had to admit, this didn't look like a good team, there was way too much weakness to ground type. Unless some of them were those weird Delta Pokemon that Wes had told him about.

"I know, I was just distracted," said Eric as he looked down at the magenta rucksack at his feet. He tossed out S: 007 and S: 008s' Pokeballs, which came out of that bag, out in front of him just as he had done with the other three. Florina scurried up to the rest of the group. He saw the same flickering violet aura crackling around the Ditto and the Jigglypuff also.

"Okay… which ones to send out first?" Eric muttered to himself as he looked at the rag-tag band of Pokemon. It was a little overwhelming, having just 2 Pokemon was so much easier, it would mean that he wouldn't have to choose. For a split second, Eric considered putting Florina and Blaze together to start, but as Gabe had said only a few seconds ago, there was too much ground weakness. Eric finally surrendered and said, "I just can't choose."

"That's okay, 'Ric. Here, lemme take a look," said Gabe as he pried Eric's PDA out of his palm. After a brief glance at the 'Party' Menu and the Pokemon's statistics, attacks, and abilities Gabe handed the device back to Eric. "Well, we really need to get those Shadow Pokemon back to normal, so I think you should start of with the Dit'. Start up with the ferret too, if you see any problems with any of your opponents fighting against it, Shadow 'form 'em with Dit'. Hopefully you should open up Dit's heart enough so that it can relearn Transform and be better later in battle."

Eric wondered how he failed to see this combination, it made perfect sense… _Oh well, I just need some more experience at this type of stuff,_ Eric thought to himself, _any of these Pokemon could have been useful with Ditto actually._ "Thanks, that sounds like a good plan… but who do I-" and that was when an odd ringing came out of Gabe's watch.

"Looks like they finally stopped," said Gabe as he looked down at his watch and returned his Machamp in the red haze from which it came out. Eric took that as his cue to return his Pokemon too, but Blaze and Florina cunningly avoided their beams. "I think these guys are one of the few that don't like being cramped up in those things," Gabe said with a chuckle.

Eric rolled his eyes, but smiled while he said, "Fine, fine, you guys can stay out." Florina expressed her thankfulness by hopping up onto Eric's shoulder and giving him a little nuzzle while Blaze tapped his foot; presumably he wanted to get going as soon as possible. With his photographic memory, Eric tried to capture this moment, for he knew that it would make a nice sketch. "I guess were all ready then," Eric said with an excited nod. He was looking foreword to battling and getting Roxie back… and getting his parents back after at least a week of searching.

Gabe didn't say another word before he let out the large, brown-furred, humanoid Pokemon. It looked so fragile that it could hardly stand up, yet it was, and its face looked incredibly fierce. Although this Pokemon may not have looked spectacular physically, it could rip a human to shreds with an afterthought. With the twist of its spoon, the Alakazam spun Eric, Gabe, Florina, Blaze, and itself out of reality, then back into it at a different place.

It took a few moments for Eric a few moments for his vision to clear, but when it did, he was sure that this was the right place. In many yards front of him was a building that almost looked boring and unnoticeable because of its predictable shape, a tin rectangle, but it was painted in an odd, mangled rainbow, one color for each type of Pokemon. Right in front of this building was the van that he saw drag Roxie off, and it was obviously already empty. This was obvious not because Eric could see though the windows of the van, but because he could see Roxie and a group of latex-covered imbeciles walking up to the building.

Eric was tempted to run after the group, and almost did, until Gabe pulled him back. "Don't worry, we'll just teleport in," he said in a whisper while moving behind a van that looked similar to the one that the group had just filed out of. Eric, however, was to anxious to hear a word that he had said. In a second, Eric squirmed out of Gabe's grip. It was then that he saw one of his latex-clad enemies press a button on the face of the building, causing the entire face to pull up and make an opening. Quickly Eric darted behind objects so as not to be seen and eventually made it to the opening. By the time he finally slipped through, all of the others were already inside and the 'door' was almost half closed. Luckily the idiots running this place had not thought to install security cameras, and Eric and his black clothes could blend in with the shadows of this place.

So he was covered, but there had to be something he was forgetting… Oh, yes, the giant chicken now standing at his side and the vanilla-colored ferret now perched upon his shoulder. If anyone came by, they were sure to see one of those two. _Oh well, _he thought, perhaps_ he should ask Gabe for help._ So he flipped out his PDA and saw that he already had mail from Gabe. It was a little crude, no heading or ending, it got right to he point; it said:

_I_ _was about to kill you back there, but I guess your instincts were good. This place is teleport proof, I have no way to get in. My battery is almost dead too, so unless you can open that door up again, you're going solo. Better send this before the battery really does die, good luck._

After thoroughly smacking his head against a wall, Eric looked over to Blaze and asked, "Mind lighting the way for us?"

"Com com bus com," replied the Cobusken in what may have been interpreted in a friendly manner. Slowly Blaze blew fire into his palm, and it steadily took the shape of a sphere. By the light that the overgrown rooster had created, Eric saw that the inside of this place had the same color scheme as the outside… and that a man dressed in completely black latex was moving steadily toward them. The Coloron had already noticed them, it was too late to extinguish the fireball which Blaze had created.

"Well, I thought I heard some rats sneaking around down here," said the man in a silky, seducing, dark voice. It almost, almost distracted Eric from the fact that the guy was slyly pulling a walkie-talkie out of his pocket. Eric motioned Blaze to it – but Florina was already on the job. She flung herself off of Eric with a Body Slam and right into the walkie-talkie, causing it to spin out of Bleon's hand and into a wall. After a loud crash, bits and pieces of plastic could be seen scattered around on the floor near the wall. "You'll pay for that you little rat," Bleon said with a slimy smile, though Eric could not see it trough the mask covering the lower half of the man's face.

Bleon tossed the ferret Pokemon back into Eric's arms, and along with it 2 Pokeballs with gray bottoms and the signature Team Rainbow design at the top. Out of the first appeared the Pokemon that, normally, would have no weakness, Sableye. Eric, though, could see a silver haze fluttering around behind the Pokemon; he could tell that it was Dark and Steel type. A piece of cake for a fighting attack… The next Pokemon, however, could have posed a greater threat. This was one Pokemon that didn't need a metal coat for an Elemental Aura operation. It was the ballerina Pokemon, Kirlia, and from the thin black mark that almost looked like a 6 surrounding it, Eric could tell that this was a Psychic and Dark Pokemon. In response, Eric motioned for Blaze to join the battle and tossed out the Pokeball containing S: 008. He could see that the purple aura around the Ditto because just the slightest bit dimmer.

"S:008, start lets start off with a Shadow Morph on the Kirlia. Blaze, give that Sableye a nice Sky Upper Cut," said Eric while the Coloron commanded "D: 004, Psychic on that overgrown fowl! D:003, same for you, NOW!"

First to strike was Blaze. He made a berserk run up to Sableye and gave it a good smack right in the face. The Pokemon went flying into the ceiling, but unfortunately, Blaze did too, because Sableye scooped up Blaze's body and flung it up before it made contact with the ceiling. When both Pokemon finally came back on the ground, they were writhing in pain. Meanwhile, Ditto threw a gooey, purple, shadowy blob of itself onto the opposing Pokemon, causing it to become a purple pile of goo itself. S:008 had received its instructions, but it no longer knew the attack that it was expected to perform, so it just sat there, staring.

When Bleon said, "What the –many censored words- did you –more censored words- to my -more censored words-!" this time, his voice was not at all silky or alluring. Blaze took a pocket dictionary from Eric's bag to be sure that the particular string of curses that he used made no sense, and of course they did not. It sounded a bit like he was complaining about the now mutated Kirlia though… "D: 004, Transform into that giant… chicken-thing," he said uncertainly, "and D: 003, launch off another Psychic!"

Eric figured that the Shadow Ditto had done enough, so wit ha quick compliment, it was returned. As a replacement, he threw out S: 001's Great Ball. Quickly he snapped both Pokeballs back onto his belt and said, "Blaze, serve Sableye up a Dynamic Punch!" with a little more pep than he had before. He was pretty confident that he would win now.

Blaze, still holding the sphere of flame in his left hand the lit the battle, ran up to the Delta Sableye again. This time, instead if hitting the Pokemon's stomach and following through with an upward movement, Blaze hit the Pokemon on the side and followed through with a strait foreword movement, making the Pokemon spin. D: 003 was seeing in such a blur when it attempted to attack that it picked itself up and slammed itself into its trainer. The 'Kirlia' slowly grew and stretched until it became less and less of a blob, then more of a replica of Blaze.

Not wanting to waste any more time on this battle, Eric revved up the Snag Machine in his right sleeve by plucking a Great Ball out of his bag and waiting for the wires to connect. While the machine was still getting ready, he said to the Shadow Electabuzz, "Try a Shadow Bolt on the Kir-…Dit-… whatever that thing that looks like Blaze is," he said with a chuckle.

After a little tussle, trying to throw the confused Pokemon off of him, Bleon stood up and stared with intent, angry eyes on Eric. " S: 004, use Dynamic Punch on that tub of lard with the antennae! S: 003," and a smile curled over his face before he said this, " Doom Desire on the same one!"

Eric was amazed that a Pokemon as common as Sableye would know such a move, but… a Delta Technical Machine, that must have been it. He was almost ecstatic, because that same Pokemon would soon be in he Great Ball that he would throw. It worked so easily, the wires reprogramming the Pokeball slipped back into their places, Eric threw the ball, it hit the Pokemon, and it flew strait back into his hand without even the smallest wiggle or squirm. Then he was surprised; the ball was supposed to disappear because he already had a full party. _Duh, this place is teleport proof! _Eric shouted at himself in his mind.

As Eric tossed the Great Ball containing the Sableye back into his bag (for there was no more room on his belt), S: 001 built up electrical and dark energy in its antennae. Within a few moments, he unleashed the blast full force into the Blaze copy. The Delta Kirlia turned Ditto took some heavy damage but fought though it and right up to Electabuzz in a perfect imitation of Blaze. Shadow Electabuzz, however, was too quick and made the copy trip and smashed its fist right into a wall.

Bleon sputtered some more curse words as Eric said," 001, Thunder Wave! Blaze, send your copy flying with Sky Uppercut!" S: 001 sent out a weak jolt of electricity at the Combusken copy with its fist stuck in the wall, making it even harder to move for the Pokemon. Bleon said something to his Pokemon, but it had no chance at all of being able to attack. Blaze ran up to the Kirlia and smashed it out of the wall and through the building's ceiling. Eric loaded up another Great Ball in his Morph Suit and as the Combusken Clone fell back into the building, Eric tossed the Great ball at it; another easy capture.

Now Bleon was screaming curses at the top of his lungs, but he was quickly knocked out by a punch to the jaw from Blaze. Eric took an Escape Rope out of his backpack, tied the Coloron up in it, and stuffed him in a supply closet father down the hall. It was then that he noticed that the hall split at least 7 different ways. There was almost no way to tell which one lead to more information, or which one lead to Roxie. Then, he had one of his best ideas of the day. He looked to the little ferret Pokemon at his side and smiled a cunning little smile. "Florina, you know Roxie's sent by now, right?"

"Fur… furret fur," said Florina as she nodded her head. It seemed an odd question to ash her. But within a few seconds she understood what Eric wanted her to do. Happily and gracefully she hopped off of Eric's shoulder and onto the floor, far away from Blaze (so that the smell of fire burning would not interfere. Quickly she picked up the sent of her most familiar friend and tracked it down the middle hallway. Eric shrugged and quietly creeped on behind her. Blaze followed behind Eric, dimming his light a little so another accident like the last battle wouldn't happen again.

Side Notes:

-I hope this isn't completely horrible after my break from this. -

-D: 003 (Delta Sableye)

-Type: Dark/Steel

-Doom Desire

-Psychic

-D: 004 (Delta Kirlia)

-Type: Dark/Psychic

-Psychic

-S: 001 (Shadow Electabuzz)

-New Move, regained from 1 level of purification, Thunder Wave

-I'm now going to keep a list of the peons that Eric/Roxie fight against so they don't have any repeat battles.

-Greon (Grass)

-Yellon (Thunder)

-Whiteon (Normal)

-Bleon (Dark)


	13. Chapter 13: Lucky Number Thirteen

Chapter 13: Lucky Number Thirteen

Eric continued to wander down the hallways behind the always-sniffing ferret Pokemon and in front of the only light source that he was going to get in this place. No matter where he was in the headquarters, for he could only assume that this was what this place was, he saw that ugly rainbow painted diagonally along the wall wit the same 17 repeating colors: white, a scarlet red, a deep ocean blue, a sickly pale yellow, a dark, forest-like green, a cold, frosty light blue, a tan color, similar to the color of skin, a deep dark brown, a slightly lighter brown, a sickly dark purple, off-white, a lighter purple than the one seen before it, a light green similar to the color of grass, the lightest shade of purple that could ever be seen, the purest black, and a silver with the most distinct glint.

Just as Eric's mind finally shifted from the disturbing colors, he ran right into a door with the same design as everything else. After whispering a curse under his breach and rubbing his nose, he noticed that the firelight had gone out. While trying to contain his laughter, Blaze had put a hand to his beak. Unfortunately, that was the hand holding the spherical blaze that lit the way for the trio. Blaze suffered little damage, to a Pokemon of its element, fire was quite easy to withstand. Blaze did not screech in pain, and nor did he feel like laughing anymore. Silently Blaze lowered his hand back to his side and made the small light in his hands again.

Florina was scampering in circles near the door, insisting that Eric open it, but Eric could hear voices coming from the other room. Through the door, Eric heard of the Beta testing of Delta Pokemon and something about another project being pushed off due to errors in the Alpha phase. By the tone of voice these people were using, one would think they were speaking of computer programs, but to Eric's now slightly trained ear, it was just greedy humans treating living things as if they were material possessions. Going through that room unnoticed would require even more stealth than a Kecleon could handle. "Are you sure that this is the only way to get to Roxie?" whispered Eric to the restlessly fidgeting Pokemon at his feet.

"Furr furret furr … furret furret," Florina whispered back while standing on her hind legs, pointing to the door with one of her forelegs and flexing with the other. She then pointed down the hallway that had lead the trio to the door and purposely fell over. For a while, Eric just stood with one eye open, the other twitching, and elevated eyebrows. Slowly the brows dropped, the eye fully opened, and finally a look of comprehension finally settled over his face.

"So the scent is stronger this way and if we backtrack than we'll probably lose it?" Eric asked the ferret. Surprised, Florina got back up and nodded. "So we have to find some way of getting through that room without getting noticed…" mumbled Eric, more thinking out loud than actually meaning to say anything. The idea obviously registered somewhere with Blaze though, for he extinguished his light and snatched the PDA out of Eric's backpack.

For a moment there was only silence and darkness, but a low fizz of light emitted from the PDA as Blaze turned it on. After opening up a text-editing program and a few keystrokes, Blaze handed the device back to Eric. The message read "The Black Coloron should not be out of that closet any time soon. Just go into the room as him. Use the Costume Editor on your PDA to make a recreation of Bleon's guise."

Eric did not bother to switch off the PDA, he knew that Blaze would soon need it again anyways. "That would be a good idea… but what am I going to say about you two and this backpack?" retorted Eric in a hush. Blaze took but two seconds to think before pilfering the mechanism back from Eric.

Even less time elapsed before Blaze was able to hand the PDA back on this instance. There was no pesky power switch to fumble around with this time. The husky rooster's memo this time was "Just say you got the backpack when you met 'you' in the hallway and that 'you managed to sneak away, but that you were able to snatch 'your' backpack. As for us… just return us before you go into the room." Blaze took a few seconds to explain the plan to Florina as Eric read it over.

Florina and Eric gave only a nod of consent before the two Pokemon companions were returned. Luckily after having a traumatic experience with it and seeing it various times in multiple colors, Eric was able to quickly recall the Team Rainbow costume makeup. When Eric was finally done with the Costume Editor he linked it up to the PDA and the Morph Suit responded. In no time flat, Eric was covered in black latex and black metal helmet, gloves, shoes, and chest plate. Also there was a scarf on his neck… but Eric wasn't wearing any type of neckpiece before. Concerned, Eric looked out the readout on the Suit change, and found that a necklace had been taken out of Eric's backpack and changed into the silky white scarf. Obviously the Costume Editor was very versatile…

Uneasy, but not exactly frightened, Eric tossed open the door and walked into the room. The inside looked exactly like any other boardroom with a long rectangular table, people sitting around it (no one was at the head), and charts scattered everywhere. The only difference was that all i5 of the people had the same costume design as Eric and that everything other than the charts and the people had the same hideous rainbow design that was seen everywhere else in this godforsaken location. "Ah, you're just in time. So, did you take care of the Raticate problem, Bleon?" asked the woman in pale blue sitting closest to the table dryly. "And why do you have that backpack?"

For a long period, there was only silence. Eric was not used to being referred to by the name Bleon, but eventually he realized that he was the person being addressed. Imitating the silky-smooth voice that he heard Bleon use earlier, Eric replied "It was just a pest from Abrakazam. He managed to squirrel his way out of here after I defeated him, but he forgot to grab his backpack."

A man in purple responded "Ah, so there was a battle, that explains the noise earlier on. Well, head on to the Pokemon Center, one of those hostages finally knows how to heal Pokemon and not just how to screw them up. You might as well drop the bag down in the examination room too. Don't worry about the meeting, I'll brief you later," and by his voice, Eric could tell that he was on in years compared to the others. Before walking out though the other door of the boardroom, Eric could have sworn that he way the old guy wink at him.

As he walked down the hallway and into the next room, he found a stereotypical Pokemon Center; a semicircle shaped room with a few computers and chairs near a counter where the nurse stood, in front of the ER. Like all of the other rooms that would have otherwise been normal in this headquarters, it had the annoying rainbow print. At the counter Eric saw not the stereotypical Nurse Joy, but a girl with glowing, long, amber hair and that perfect petite yet frowning face. With a sigh she asked, "What do you need now?" and under her breath added "You schmuck."

Eric once again forgot his disguise and was almost offended that Roxie would say something so offensive. Once he mentally scolded himself for forgetting, he was slightly offended by that fact that she didn't notice him. So, he decided that he would have a little fun with her. Slowly he walked up to the counter, put his folded arms up on it, and leaned over it. "I don't know, why don't you tell me, cutie?" replied Eric, once again recreating that silky dark voice that Bleon had.

"Why you little perv!" shrieked Roxie at the top of her lungs. Quickly she pulled her hand into a fist and thrusted her arm right toward the pseudo Coloron's face, but the fist never made direct contact. Eric tugged the helmet right off his head with his right arm to reveal his smugly smiling face. This time Roxie gawked, the hopped over the counter and threw her arms around Eric, sending them both to the floor. They both blushed as they got back up and tried the hug again, no more diving involved. "I can't believe you fooled me like that," Roxie said as the embrace broke away.

"I'm getting pretty good at fooling people today," Eric said, still blushing. "So you've been in here for a good," Eric took looked at the PDA that he still had in his had (he must have forgotten to put it away in all the nervousness) " 5 hours… Whoa, what have you been up to?" Eric was amazed that he had wasted that much time, but from the growl in his stomach he could tell that it had been at least that long.

Roxie took a silver disk out of her pocket and smiled. "They pretty much threw me in this room, told me I had to heal their Pokemon, then went off for some 8 hour meeting. But a Pokemon Center is also for accessing Pokemon Storage Systems… So I used the computer to copy down some important data files." Roxie looked around Eric, confused. " Speaking of Pokemon, you did find Florina after they threw her out of the truck, right?" Roxie was worried, Florina did not agree to go into her Pokeball often…

"Oh yea," Eric mumbled as he pulled 8 Pokeballs out of the backpack and handed them to Roxie. "There's Florina, the Normal Pokemon, and S: 001. I have Blaze, Buzz, and 2 guys that I picked up today," Eric said with a smile while showing the Pokeballs to Roxie. "By the way, this was supposed to be a data retrieval mission, so you did your part perfectly. Wes just happened to leave that bit out," Eric added admiringly.

Roxie face flushed once again while she released Florina from her Pokeball and while Eric did he same with Blaze. Once Roxie forgot about the flattery, she came up with a few more questions "Hey, wait, you were carrying eight Pokemon with you… and why are dressed up as Bleon?… and why did that guy set me up to be caught?…and why did you keep Florina in the ball?" She had to admit that the questions were asked very hastily, but they were all immensely valid.

While Eric quickly summarized what had happened with Gabe, the battle, Florina's tracking, and Florina, Eric, and Blaze's collective planning, Florina hopped up onto Roxie's shoulder and gently sat down on it. Roxie just nodded the whole time, she did not even look awe-struck. Maybe just because she already though it was within Eric's capabilities to do all of these things? "In any case, we need to get out of here now that we have the info. The only problem is how…"

"I bet there's a map of this place somewhere on the computer," answered Roxie with a mischievous smile. She went over to the PC and in only a few seconds came up with a map of the entire building. "I could print it out, buy if it's still dark in the halls like you said, then there'll be no light to read it all by."

Blaze smashed his head into his forehead; sometimes humans needed help with everything. At least he had a way to communicate his brilliant ideas to them. Once again he snagged the PDA away from Eric, went into the still-running word processing program, and tapped away. When he handed the electronic to Roxie its message was short, sweet, and to the point, "Just upload the map to this thing, duh." With a giggle, Roxie did as the chicken commanded.

Roxie shut off the computer and looked over the map on the PDA. There seemed to be a switch that lifted the large entrance door on the inside as well as the outside, but that would require going through the board rood again. The only other way out would be to bust a wall. Conveniently, a wall that would lead them right outside was a wall in the Pokemon Center. It should have been very easy too, for Eric had said that a hole was made in the ceiling was made during Bleon and Eric's battle. Still, there had been a whole Pokemon flying through and not just the fist. Then it came to her. "Okay guys, listen up, we only have one good shot of getting out and this is how we're gonna do it. Florina, give Blaze a helping hand. Blaze, Sky Uppercut that wall," se said confidently while pointing to the wall.

However, the Pokemon did not need to waste the effort. The elderly man in the purple outfit stormed into the Pokemon Center, but his face didn't look flushed from exertion as one would expect for someone at his age. Maybe he was used to running that fast, exerting that much energy. Either way, a Victreebel appeared out of the Pokeball that he threw; it was obviously an experiment in the S-Series for with a clink Eric's shadow visor flew out before his eyes and revealed a weak dark aura over the Pokemon. As if this was not enough evidence that the leafy Pokemon with an outrageously large mouth were the top of its head should have been and small, piercing eyes right under them was partially purified, the man in purple shouted out "S:010, dissolve the wall with acid!"

Slowly that large mouth worked, as if gathering up spit to chuck out the biggest lugie ever seen. In a way, that was pretty much what it did. With in milliseconds, there was a large hole in the metal. Quickly the acid dripped down and dissolved the rest of the wall with ease. When it was all done, there was just enough room for Eric, Roxie, Blaze, and Florina to leave, but they were all immobile in their confusion. "…Well, get on before the others find you," said the aged man with a hint of annoyance and urgency in his voice. The urgency was really what got to them, though, so they all scurried out of the door without another word.

Eric was the first one out and he could see Gabe snoozing and leaning on one of the Coloron vans. His Alakazam, however, was wary and recognized Eric when he waved it over. The Alakazam quickly levitated its trainer away from the van (for if he teleported while Gabe was still touching the van, the van would also be teleported) and vanished into thin air. It reappeared just long enough to gather the rest of the group together, than pop them out of existence as well.

When they all finally reappeared, once again in Wes's living room, Gabe was finally awake and alert because he fell to the floor with a smash during his reappearance. Waiting with bowls of food for the Pokemon and hamburgers for the humans was Rui. She set the food down on a table and helped Gabe up. "So, what happened?" she asked with an air of humor. As the Pokemon devoured the delectables, Eric, Roxie, and Gabe explained their admittedly confusing adventure; taking pauses only to eat and recap when Wes entered the room. When it was finally over, Gabe left; claiming that he had some new team recruits that he needed to train and Eric and Roxie's Pokemon had been taken away to be healed.

"Another good job you two. I'll take a look at this disk, but we might not get that much. Eventually we managed to wriggle it out of Whiteon that hers was only the lowest ring on the totem pole in that team. They therefore probably have the least exclusive information. I should take a look at it anyways," Wes said as Roxie passed the disk to her. "Either way its going to take a long time for me to process, so I'm sending you on another mission gathering mission in Holon. There's a vigilante crime fighter there right now that calls himself the Holon Phantom. It's rumored that he has a team of Delta Pokemon. I just want you to see if you can pin him down and investigate him, figure out what he's all about."

"What about the Coloron in purple? Don't you want us to find out more about him?" Eric asked, confused. The man certainly was a mystery; why would he help out his opposition and hinder his own team? Wes did not show any recognition of him when the story was being recounted.

"I would try to get you guys on his case, but as of now we have no idea where he could be. I would think that the Colorons are at least smart enough to change location when an enemy has discovered their hideout. Meanwhile we have an equally mysterious nutcase for you to investigate," answered Wes with a warm smile.

"It sound good to me," Roxie said before she yawned. "I just want to get to sleep." That was probably the only thing right then that seemed obvious. There were black rings around Roxie's eyes and she was having a hard time keeping her eyes open, aside from the yawn. She looked as if she would collapse right where she was sitting.

"Head off to bed you two, we'll see you off tomorrow," said Rui as she shooed Eric and Roxie off. They all said their goodnight and retired to their separate rooms. Eric sat up in bed for a few hours, contemplating when all these mysteries would finally link back to his parents. Eventually his lack of sleep caught up this him and the cozy bed was just too hard to resist. So Eric finally slipped under the covers and instantly slumbered off.

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Side Notes:

-Who is the Holon Phantom? Who is the mysterious Coloron in Purple? I'm not telling you, I'm just trying to keep up your anticipation. P

-This chapter was named Lucky Number Thirteen because it was the 13th chapter, 13 is normally thought of as an unlucky number, and I've noticed that Eric and friends get pretty lucky in many places of this chapter. I think it's the name of a movie too.

-The next chapter will be named The Holon Phantom after my new character who is named after the newest English TCG set.


	14. Chapter 14: The Holon Phantom

Chapter 14: The Holon Phantom

The Phantom peered out at the town from the once astounding laboratory, the remains of the Holon Tower. It was amazing that he had managed to make it back here in only two days, but he did not leave those forty-eight hours unchanged. When he finally did return to the rubble of Holon Tower, he found a black cloak and some lab gloves made black from ash. The Phantom decided to wear both of these items and pulled the long hood of the cloak over his head so that not one physical feature of the Phantom could be perceived. For the next few days, the Phantom had been lurking around the streets of Holon, searching for the ones who changed him; yet he made no progress. All the Phantom was able to find were rip-off criminals hoping to gain a much greater scare factor.

During the next few days, however, the citizens of Holon managed to create numerous rumors about the Phantom and his origins. Many people claimed to see him hovering slightly over the ground. This lead people to believing that the Phantom had some sort of 'anti-gravity shoes' and that he was one of the few professors able to escape the Colorons' grasp. Others, however, said that this amazing feat could only be contributed to telekinetic power (a trait more rare in humans than the odd color of Sigfried in Scizors). Some went one step farther to say that the Phantom was an apprentice of Wil (the well known Psychic Kanto and Jhoto Elite Four member), Sabrina (the slightly known Psychic Gym Leader of Kanto), or even of Tate and Liza (the almost completely unknown Gym Leaders of Hoenn). Another group went just maybe one step to far by suggesting that the Phantom was either Wil or Sabrina in disguise (for surely neither Tate or Liza could fill the costume that the Phantom wore). In some ways, these people were right; in others, they were hideously wrong.

As the Holon Phantom continued his scan, he spotted no crime, at least any that would interest him. Had he really eradicated this town of all of the possible people that he could be pursuing? Were there no Colorons left to be absolutely sure that all of the professors were wrangled up? He had to conclude that this was true and prepared to leave with what little clues he had. But then something caught his eye in a wide-open patch of grass to his left. As if by magic the Phantom leaped over many metal buildings to make his way to the park. Quietly and quickly he hid behind the largest, leafiest tree that he could find. The Holon Phantom saw a boy, tall for his age, wearing a sleek black leather jacket, a white undershirt, faded blue jeans, a shining gold (could that really be gold?) necklace, and a black bandana. He was standing next to a girl wearing a pink tee with paws all over it and deep, dark black jeans. They were deep in battle against a girl in a light blue windbreaker, a tight black top, and khaki shorts. What most likely had captured the eyes of the Holon Phantom the giant wave ridden by the large amphibious aquamarine colored Pokemon with fins on its feet, head, and cheeks (which were orange), a Marshtomp.

A beautifully green and focused ballerina Pokemon that Eric was in charge of during this battle was able to dodge the attack by swiftly and gracefully jumping on the other side of the tree that the Phantom was hidden behind. Luckily he went on unnoticed. The tub of human-shaped lard with a strange lightning-shaped mark on its chest, black and yellow fur, fierce eyes, and a pair of antennae was not able to evade the attack. At least he did not take a decent amount of damage due to resistance.

Eric had been keeping an eye on this Marshtomp all throughout this battle. Around the Pokemon, Eric saw a crackling sliver with hints of violet. He saw this as an excellent opportunity to take full advantage of his own Pokemon's modified type and the one special surprise attack that it knew. "Antoinette, give that Marshtomp hat just hit you a good Crunch!" said Eric gleefully. Just as gracefully as it had hidden behind the tree, the Kirlia lunged itself at the Marshtomp, which was running quickly back to its place by its trainer. She landed on the Pokemon's back and sank her teeth into its slimy skin. As the Marshtomp howled out in pain, Kirlia pulled its jaws out of the Pokemon and glided back to Eric.

She did not return promptly, however, for a second Marshtomp was commanded to attack. "Marshall, give 'em a good shake up with Earthquake!" screamed out the girl in the windbreaker, just as gleefully as Eric had. The other Marshtomp, as far as Eric and Roxie knew, was in no way different from the average Marshtomp. It hopped up high into the air, then landed back down, causing a massive rumble and ground breaking apart under its partner, Antoinette, and Buzz. Each of the Pokemon fell and took massive damage for it, but the Delta Marshtomp most probably took the most due to its weakness. None of the trainers fell because they were far away enough from the attack and the Phantom was hovering slightly over the ground.

Roxie noticed that the Delta Marshtomp was near its damage limit so she politely asked Buzz 'Would you mind shocking the weaker one with a Thunderbolt?" Buzz smiled in reply; then gathered electrical energy from its antennae in his palms. After a few moments, there was so much power held in those hands that it looked as if the Electabuzz's hands were glowing. As the smile on his face changed to a smirk, Buzz released the energy from his control. Since Delta Marshtomp was the closest conductor, it took full force from the attack. With a crispy sizzle it fell to the ground, one of its eyes in a swirl and the other in the shape of an x. With a whisper of thanks for a job well done, the girl in the windbreaker returned her Marshtomp in a hazy beam of red light.

Eric and Roixe looked at each other and nodded, they knew exactly what to do in a situation like this. Eric looked out to the Kirila and said, "Can you put on a little sun dance for us, Sunny Day?" Antoinette vivaciously hopped into the middle of the battleground and made a dramatic dance that none but a theater buff (and there were none around) could interpret. Although it was rather subtle, the light in the patch of grass seemed harsher and the temperature was much higher.

The opposing trainer had no idea what was happening, so she figured that she might as well use what had worked before. Once again she ordered her Marshtomp to use Earthquake, and once again the obedient Pokemon executed her wishes. This time when the Pokemon toppled over, Buzz fell right onto Antoinette, causing her to lose coniousness. Unfortunately, Eric had no more usable Pokemon to send into battle, so he just returned the Kirlia and sat back on a large rock to the rest unfold. He would not be there for long.

Knowing that the battle was near its end, Roxie screeched, "Okay, Buzz, just like we planned for this one!" giddily. Because of the intensified solar energy, Buzz was ready and set to fire milliseconds after the command was made. A bright green burst of energy flew out of Buzz's antennae and crashed into Marshtomp, sending it flying toward the tree that the Phantom had chosen to conceal himself behind. Once again, no one noticed the black mark against the luscious green grass; perhaps they thought he was just a shadow… Whatever prevented the group from acknowledging the Phantom, the windbreaker girl returned her Pokemon and walked up to the other trainers with a smile.

"Thanks you guys. I think you've been the best training these guys have had in a couple of months. You were even harder than those Hexagon Team Peons were; I'm sure I could have beaten 'em if there weren't so many…"muttered the girl to Roxie and Eric, who was no up off the rock and standing next to his partner. Roxie returned her Pokemon and started the group walking off to the nearest Pokemon center where she often volunteered.

"Don't worry, Cynthia, we know how hard they are to mess with," said Eric looking somewhat confident. His head was getting pretty big from being congratulated so often on his newfound battling skills. Not to mention he still seemed to be able to sketch many Pokemon from memory, and the sketches did not suffer for it. Little did he know that the Phantom who he was trying to meet was trailing right behind him, lurking the shadows.

"I was still surprised when I saw the Shadow Pokemon even though you told me before hand why. It's just so wrong, but it makes sense. Some of the professors were part of Cipher before they came here, but they were rehabilitated; they must be forced by the Hexagons to do all of this," said Cynthia with remorse. Her father was one of the former Ciphers that had been taken by the Rainbow Team, but she did not want to say anything to her new friends.

"It surprised us too," piped in Roxie. "We thought the Shadow operation was finally over, but with the professors and some old info that some of the Colorons got from an old Cipher base, they're all back into it. I don't see why they're making Delta Pokemon and Shadow Pokemon though… they're both as confusing to figure out in battle." And so the group went on, discussing recent events, and briefly Eric asked Cynthia is she had ever seen the Holon Phantom, and to that she answered no.

After Roxie and a Nurse Joy healed all of the Pokemon, the friends said their good-byes. Roxie had to leave to her parents' house, and as she said before, could not invite boys overnight. Cynthia was not a traveling trainer; her parents also had a home in town, so she headed home too. Eric's sleeping arrangement was to sleep in one of the bunks in the back of the Center. Knowing that he would be bored just staying in his bunk the entire night, Eric met with some of the trainers and let Blaze out to converse with some of the Pokemon. When the day was finally done, Blaze was asleep in the top bunk, and Eric was just about the slip into the bed, the Phantom entered through the wide-open window.

Eric was astonished when he heard the man speak; it was as if the voice came from everywhere at the same time, so he could not pinpoint his location in the dancing shadows. "I hear that you were looking for me," said the Phantom in a smooth yet somehow indifferent voice. "Meet me tomorrow at 10 in what is left of the Tower," said the Phantom in, eerily, in the exact same tone and volume that he had used before. With a gust of wind, the Phantom left… Or did he? The pattern of the shadows was no different than it was before. So Eric was left once again, so busy pondering that he tuckered himself out and did not even notice it when he closed his eyes and skidded right into dream land.

The next day, Eric awoke to a giggling Roxie at his bedside. His Suit had gone into sleep mode, in other words, when he fell into a deep enough sleep, the Suit would change into pajamas. Since it was the warmest season of the year and Orre was a warm place no matter what the season, the Suit had changed into just pajama bottoms. With the blanket slipping halfway down his chest, part of Eric's chest was bare. Eric blushed as he sat up in the bed and pulled the blanket around him. "How did you get in here?" asked Eric, completely bemused.

As Blaze walked back into the room, chowing down on an apple, Roxie simply replied, "Oh, I just asked Nurse Joy which room you were in. I made sure to get here early because I knew you wouldn't get up when we agreed." In the nine or so days that Roxie had known Eric, she had already learned that he was not much of a morning person. Unless of course there was something very important that he was anticipating… and he did not look so tired this morning; was he looking forward to something today?

Eric's suit was silently dragged out of sleep mode, and Eric could feel the clothes slowly building up around him. When it was finally done, Eric dropped the blanket and Florina, who was quietly sitting on Roxie's shoulder hopped over to Eric's lap and accepted a gentle petting from him. Blaze sat down next to Eric on the bed so he could lisiten in on the rest of the conversation. "Wait, what time is it?" asked Eric with a look of shock on her face.

Roxie tugged the PDA out of Eric's backpack lying by his bedside. On the lower right corner of the screen the time was displayed and Roxie repeated it. "This say its about 9:30; why do you need to know?" Roxie was disappointed that Eric was so anxious to go something that she had no idea about. Was he going to hang out with another trainer that he met in the Pokecenter lobby yesterday, a female trainer?

Eric let out a deep sigh of relief before saying, "I saw that Holon Phantom last night." The look on Roxie's face made Eric smirk, she looked completely lost. "He slipped into my room last night… I didn't exactly hear him, but I heard him. He told me to come with you to the Tower Ruins at 10 today." Blaze looked just as confused as Roxie, he hadn't heard the Phantom last night yet he was in the same room.

After a few more moments of looking dopey, Roxie chortled and said, "Man Eric, you sure do have some weird dreams." For what else could this be than some fantasy of Eric's? There was no way that this mission would be done that easily, now way that the Phantom would just let them come to him like that. And if someone really did talk to Eric last night, who was to say that it was the real Holon Phantom?

"It wasn't a dream!" insisted Eric while getting up out of the bed. "I know the difference between dreams and reality," he continued, his face flaring up. Blaze shook his head and yanked the PDA away from Roxie. In no time he handed the device back to Eric, who read his message allowed and blushed once more, yet this time for stupidity than embarrassment. "Blaze says that I shouldn't be so angry, yet that we should check this out anyways, that thus far it's our only lead."

"Oh, okay, but we're going to miss him if we say here any longer," mumbled Roxie as she picked up Florina from Eric's lap and cradled her in her arms. So the group walked out and to the Tower. It did not take long, even if the tower had been toppled, the ruins laid higher than any building in the entirety of Holon. Upon the remains, however, neither Roxie, Eric, Blaze, or Florina could find a trace of the Phantom, and it was already 10:05.

It was then that the Phantom, out of everyone's sight said, "What are you all looking for?" That was when Eric noticed that the voice coming from everywhere wasn't just an illusion from his fear, it happened in the daytime too. Even if he couldn't pinpoint the voice, Eric looked back, and there was the Phantom, sitting on a pile of ashes in his cloak and gloves. Slowly everyone sat down on an adjacent pile of refuse to that of the Phantom's and he communicated, "I already know what you want of me, what everyone else in this town wants to know. Why I care enough to try to stop the criminals in this town, if I am doing it for myself, others, or something else. I will answer whatever you may have to ask, but first I have to get some clarifications from you." And he looked at them, and even though they could not see his facial expression, they knew that he was asking them in they agreed, and all four of the companions nodded. "Good. First question: what do you intend to do with this information once I give it to you."

Roxie decided to respond this question; she knew more about what would happen to this scoop since she had been in Wes's organization every summer for the last three years. "Well, we're hoping that whatever you can tell us will lead us closer to one of the Hexagon-Rainbow Hideouts. So far we've only managed to find one and the Colorons have definitely moved from it by now."

So it seemed that their paths crossed for good reasons; these children had the same goal as the Phantom yet they were able to locate one of the bases they retreated to after the Holon attack. It wouldn't help him at all to inspect a deserted base though, so he decided to ask a different question than he had planned. "Second question: I hear that you have come into possession of Shadow Pokemon, how did you manage that?"

Eric frowned as he said, "You talk about Pokemon as if they are possessions… but I suppose we still need to find out more about you, so I will answer your question. The Rainbow Team has decided a different attempt on taking over Orre… if that is their goal. They've decided to make Delta Pokemon to confuse people and Shadow Pokemon to strike them down while confused. It's a powerful combination, but its absolutely hideously evil," with a hint of annoyance floating around in his words.

The Phantom was impressed, the boy had answered one of the questions he was going to ask, but he had not yet asked it. He was going to ask how the team felt about the corruption of Pokemon's hearts'. The Phantom would have also asked about their thoughts on Delta Pokemon, but they would think it was harmless since the only Delta Pokemon they had encountered were Special Delta Pokemon. So he carried on with his investigation by starting to say "Quest-", but he was never able to finish for another, much louder voice broke though his.

"Gust!" the man covered in beige latex, a beige scarf, and glimmering metal armor called from his pudgy bird Pokemon with a wide wingspan, sly, defiant, strong eyes, and wondrous ruby and blond hair streaming behind it. The Pokemon, a Pidgeot, swooped down from the clouds that it had been hiding behind and right into the Phantom's face. With the smallest flutter of its wing, the hood flew off of the Phantom. The Pidgeot flew back a yard so that its trainer could get a good glance at what was there. What the devious man saw were ears, almost the sap of a cats, yet rounded at the ends so they looked almost like those of a dragons, a long, human like face that would have seemed fierce had there not been a smile drawn over it, deep purple eyes, a feline-like nose, and pasty gray skin. The slimy felon hopped down from is fearsome fowl and near a pile of discarded and destroyed computers to say, "So I was correct. The Holon Phantom is none other than D: 050, sub category DP, Delta Physical, Mewtwo. You were not authorized to leave the Rainbow Hexagon Colordmin base five days ago, and I am here to ensure recapture."

Roxie, Eric, and Florina watched on in pure horror as the episode unfolded. The three of them were completely lost, usually they had the surprise waiting just under their selves, but now so much confusing information unloading on them that it seemed to much to bear. What was sub division Delta Physical … how could the Phantom be a Pokemon yet still talk to them? Blaze, however was made of much tougher stuff. He got up from his seat next to Eric and walked toward D: 050's side, proudly standing at half the other Pokemon's height. The Phantom, the Mewtwo, D: 050 sub category DP, whatever he may be called looked down at the Comusken with a cheerful smile and said, "Thank you, I may need your help."

The smile turned condescending and violent as the Phantom said to his rival, "You have no right to authorize my release from your wrongful imprisonment, you have no rights over me, none at all. If you can best me in competition you may be able to imprison me, but you do not have that power over me anymore." Then he revealed a long and surprisingly muscular arm from under his cloak with three suction-cup like fingers. Gently and swiftly he moved those fingers and the Pidgeot went down the ground writing in pain. Mewtwo was not able to keep his hold of the Pidgeot's muscles for much longer, though, and the bird Pokemon slight back into the sky with some slight injuries.

The Flying Pokemon oriented Admin was not impressed in the least. With a shrug of indifference, he tossed out a second Pokeball to reveal a Pokemon with a long, brown neck and body, a leafy helmet head with bananas growing under the chink, and four gargantuan leaf-wings growing out of its back, a Tropius. It was then that Eric and Roxie were finally flung out of confusion and into reality; their Shadow Visors had suddenly forced themselves over their faces. Each of them saw a small purple fume slowly rising over the Grass and Flying Pokemon, but Eric saw many more unusual things about this battle.

Eric looked over to the Phantom, who had large flexing muscles where slender little arms should have been. The Flydmin, as Eric chose to think of the Phantom's opponent, had mentioned that D: 050 was a Physical Delta Pokemon, could this mean that the Mewtwo was Psychic and Fighting type? But if he was in fact a Delta Pokemon, wouldn't Eric have seen him for what he was earlier? Then again, the Mewtwo had been cloaked before, Eric could not See though physical objects (he already knew because he could not See Delta Pokemon through buildings), and he could See that Mewtwo was Fighting and Psychic type now. The Pidgeot's true type was obvious, its Normal type had been taken away and replaces with a crackling yellow aura, Electric type. However Eric's questions could be answered, he stood up behind his Pokemon and grimaced at his opponent.

"Blaze, roast that oversized pigeon right out the sky!" shouted Eric with extreme conviction. Blaze took in a deep breath, then let it out. Instead of carbon dioxide being released, there was a steady flow of roaring fire that crashed right into the Delta Pidgeot. The Pokemon became inflicted with the Burn condition for it was not able to put of one of the flames that was still eating away at its feathers.

"Pick off that nuisance of a chicken with Wing Attack," muttered Flydmin to his Pidgeot. The nasty little bird flew at full force into its opponent, forced its wing out, and rammed it into Blaze. Blaze flew back into Eric who, if nothing else, softened the impact of the attack. The Pidgeot sneered at its opponent before flapping back to its place in battle. Annoyed, Blaze stood back up and screamed "Com!" an explicit in Pokemon language. Eric and Blaze had not heard their opponent's command to the Tropius because of interference from Blaze's cursing. It was obvious however, that some sort of purple spores were making their way toward the Phantom. The Phantom evaded and deflected them with a small wisp of his cloak; the spores glided a bit back toward Tropius, then fell short.

Eric was about to make another witty comment signaling an attack for Blaze, but Roxie cut him off. "Eric," she shouted to him " use your head! You can take the Pidgeot out of this battle right now if you capture it!" So Eric once again blushed and scolded himself for stupidity; he had forgotten that this battle was not about beating the living crud out of its opponents, but about rehabilitating corrupted Pokemon. Out of one of the side pockets of his backpack Eric pulled out a Pokeball that he had been saving for just an occasion like this, an Ultra Ball. Within a second it was Snag ready and Eric hurled it at the enormous pidgin. The Delta Pidgeot practically flew right into a ball seeing it as a way to escape its abusive trainer. The ball flew right back into Eric's palms and jiggled a bit, as if the Pokemon was having second thoughts about being transferred to another trainer. It did not manage to force itself out, however, and the ball vanished in a small flash of dim blue light.

"D: 049 is a necessary loss, but I cannot allow D: 050 to escape. S: 029, Shadow Whip," said Flydmin calmly and coolly. Tropius, looking void of all thoughts but those of battle, quickly grew purple vines that clashed onto S: 050's blanched skin. The Mewtwo took the damage with little or no resistance then punched the vines, causing them to hoe in at the attacker at twice the speed of the original attack. The whips smacked their maker right in the face and made it tumble down upon its trainer. Eric threw another ball out and it consumed the Pokemon as if it was the sweetest chocolate upon the good green earth. As the ball came back it gave not even the slightest rumble; the Pokemon was too weak to even give a fight. The Great Ball vanished just as the Ultra Ball before it had.

Flydmin tried to dash off, but since he had no more Pokemon buffers, the Holon Phantom held him back telekinetically. He then pinned the villain to fallen pillar of the tower by picking up a rope left in the carnage and tying him up, once again telekinetically. Roxie scribbled down a note to the authorities, should they come. She didn't bother to leave evidence, she knew that this idiot wouldn't try to get out of this by claiming innocence. He was one of those people who admitted defeat when they saw it so cut their losses and spare any extra embarrassment and she could just tell by how easily he let them tie him up.

And so the Phantom pulled the hood over his head once again and guided the group to a shady area near the Holon Lake. He told them not say things aloud, but to think them. He said to them that it was telepathy that allowed him to speak, and that he could link all five of them together. Mewtwo continually asked the opinions of the others in the group, but everyone else was digging around for information. In the end, D: 050 shared that he was created in the Holon Tower seventeen years earlier, a clone of a clone, made from DNA of the original Mewtwo. The professors noticed that he was not only a talented Pokemon, but very intelligent and taught him to run much of the machinery in the Tower by the age of seven. From then on, Mewtwo had been the brains of the operation; he was the one that was making all of the advances. He had just started to create the physical Delta Pokemon and was toying with trying to make more Delta Pokemon without metal coats. The Rainbows, however, had mutilated his work, making physical Deltas with out any thought of how much it could hurt when you massively modified body parts. The Phantom was trying to devise a painkiller strong enough ease the change, but the Rainbows hopped right into his research without a second thought. After two days of experimentation and pain, Mewtwo saw the result of the research in himself. He gained so much muscle mass that it was almost unbearable, and he had lost his tail somehow. So he fled, discreetly so that it would take a long while for them to track him back to Holon. He also shared with them the location of the base in which he was stored and experimented on.

"So what are you going to do now, are you going to help us track them down?" asked Roxie, admiring the astounding Pokemon sitting right in front of her. He would be an amazing help in the fight, even if it would be a risk if he were somehow captured. There seemed nothing better for him do now though.

"No," replied the Phantom " even with out combined strength we are still not ready to take on the masses that the Hexagons have assembled. I think it would be best to let more of them come to me, so I can take them down one at a time. Meanwhile you can continue to disassemble their lesser members so you can one day stand a chance of fighting the real leaders. I suppose I can also help the police out with more than what I want to find justice for." The Phantom smiled and Eric could tell even if he hadn't seen the Pokemon's face.

Having nothing left to say to one another, the Phantom and the others went their separate ways with some small good-byes. Eric, Roxie, Blaze, and Florina made their way to an Internet café from which it was quick and easy to send a message to Wes. Blaze, of course, wrote up the mission summary as he had before. A quick reply, however, did not come back. So Roxie took Eric and Blaze on a tour of the town, showing him all of her friends houses, the small house where Delta Research had originally begun, and many other important local landmarks. At nine o'clock, a reply came from Wes on Roxie's PDA. Together the foursome huddled over the small electronic device to see what they would need to do next.

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-Antoinette is the name of some famous ballerina that I found on a Google search. . 

-I hope you guys liked the Phantom, I'll try to make him reappear much later in the series. I might make a fic just for him much much later.

-I decided to 2 small battles instead of 1 long one this time. . 

-Mashall (Marshtomp)

Trainer: Cynthia

Obtained by?

Moves:

Earthquake

-Delta Marshtomp

Type: Metal/Psychic

Trainer: Cynthia

Otained by?

Moves:

Surf

-Antoinette (Delta Kirlia)

Type: Dark/Psychic

Trainer: Roxie/Eric

Obtained by: Snagged from Bleon

Moves:

Psychic

Crunch(Delta TM)

-D:049 (Delta Pidgeot)

Type: Flying/Thunder

Trainer: Roxie and Eric

Obtained by: Captured from Flydmin

Moves:

Wing Attack

Gust

-S: 029 (Shadow Tropius)

Trainer: Roxie and Eric

Obtained by: Captured from Flydmin

Moves:

Shadow Spore: Unknown Effects

Shadow Whip: Exactly like Vine Whip, but a Shadow Move


	15. Chapter 15: Day 2, New Beginnings

Chapter 15: Day 2, New Beginnings

Florina, being illiterate, had waited for the others reactions from the others to comprehend what was going on. She had to admit none of them looked quite happy. Roxie, noticing that Florina was sufficiently intrigued decided to read the message aloud. "Dear Roxie, Eric, and company,

Kudos on finding and making allies with the Holon Phantom. Though it may have just been a fluke, dumb luck that he saw Eric, which was exactly what we needed to get to him. I am sure that our new friend will help to no end in stopping the Rainbow-Hexagon scheme, no matter what it may be. Unfortunately, he could not provide much further on locations other than a base that we are not yet prepared to handle and I haven't gotten much by processes for creating Physical Delta Pokemon (which sounded just as painful as the Phantom mentioned) on that disc.

Since we do not have any leads and I need to keep you on your feet, I'm sending you on the training exercise that Gabe was telling you about two days ago. Because it started yesterday, I will have to give you the briefing through this e-mail … and since the two teams are already even, you will have o be on separate teams.

This is how the exercise will work: each team is given a computer that is the key to winning, but to win you have to enter a seven letter password into the computer first to win. The project lasts a week and each day the leader of each group (the only one who is given his or team's password) must hide one new letter of the password somewhere in their base each day. In order to finish the password, the team must storm the opposing base each day, obtain the hidden letters, and get the information back before the end of the seventh day. Even if one team does not have the complete password, they should each enter something. Remember that this is an exercise in espionage, so expect trickery at any turn and know your allies well.

Good luck and have fun with this,

Wes"

"Furr…" sighed Florina as she realized what was happening. This would be an awesome experiment if Roxie and Eric did not have to be separated for its entirety. Or… could Wes have purposely sent them on a mission separate from each other to teach them something? They had each pretty much done a mission on their own thus far, and it seemed that they did not need to be reassured that they could still do things alone. If there was any point to Wes splitting the pair up, neither Eric nor Roxie yet understood it.

"Hey wait, he never said wh-" but Eric did not complete the sentence in the same location that he had started it. As Eric wrapped up stating "ere this thing is going to be," his face flared pink in authentic bashfulness. To his left he saw a hefty brown and yellow Pokemon with a mustache, a sizable tail, and comically a star on its head, red waves on its stomach, and a spoon in its right hand. Standing to the Kadabra's left was Blaze, confident as ever. In front of him, crowded and huddled around a dark blue, circular, plastic table were nine people; and by their appearance they seemed to be anywhere from ten to twenty years old. There were many other, similar tables in the gray cafeteria room packed with, presumably, their Pokemon. The Pokemon were in various stages of finishing their meals, but it was one of the humans, siting directly across from him that caught his attention.

The girl looked eerily similar to the description of Whiteon that Roxie had given him only a few days ago when he asked for her to recap her battle with the ditz. The only difference seemed to be that she was wearing an obnoxious neon light blue short-sleeve top, an equally disturbing pink miniskirt, and winking Clefable earrings. The girl certainly noticed Eric, for she batted her eyes in an astounding imitation of her ear trinket. Eric formed the beginning a barrage of questions, but he was once again cut short before sound was able to escape his lips.

"Ah, you must be the new recruit," said the eldest of the group. She wore sleeveless black tee and tan capris, black leather gloves with the faces of Mightyena printed on the palms. A black scrunchie to hold her raven hair into a ponytail, and black-tinted sunglasses pushed far enough down the nose that one could see the pure confidence settled in her amber eyes. Because she had addressed him first, and because most of the older guys were herded around her, Eric assumed that she was the leader of this mission, and a well-liked one. "Just introduce yourself and take a seat," she said with a nod as she motioned Eric to an empty chair.

Eric sat down in the chair, but his nervousness did not leave any sign of comfort in his face. "Ah, my name is Eric," the he looked around, looking for where Blaze was supposed to be seated. There was no chair for him, apparently they did not intend for a Pokemon more able than Eric to come to the table. Eric looked down, however, and there was the hen patiently sitting on his lap. "Oh and this is…" but Eric could not bring himself to say "my Pokemon"; he by no means owned the Pokemon patiently waiting on his lap for the discussion to start. Then it dawned on him, and Eric added, "my friend, Blaze." So everyone introduced themselves in turn; it came to be that Whiteon's name was Brittany and the leader's was Rica.

The formalities were soon terminated, and the group of youngsters got to the real discussion. It seemed that the day before a group of ten, half of team Blue had advanced to the Red base, only to be utterly defeated because the entirety of the Red squad had been waiting. Red, more concerned with protecting its opponent's key to winning than obtaining its own, had decided to keep its own team where it was. This left the entire traveling group to go to the neutral Pokecenter directly in-between the bases. Not all of them were completely down for the count, but so little where that it would have been futile to keep fighting. Apparently the team was well rested and up for another attack this discussion was going on and everyone else was eagerly awaiting the news.

"Wait, why does there have to be a Pokecenter halfway in-between the bases when we have a Center right here?" commented Eric. He already knew that this place had jus about anything that a person or Pokemon would need to live off of, it had been discussed briefly after debates about if the traveling team was really ready were over. Blaze rolled his eyes, he had obviously caught onto something that Eric had no idea about.

"… You aren't being serious, are you?" asked Rica, looking even more baffled that Eric, but Eric did not give but a shake of the head. "And you've already bee assigned missions? Eric, this is a challenge; the two bases have been placed just far enough so that it take half a day walking time to get to the other base. Calculate in the heat of the desert and meals and any other breaks, and you have at best sixteen hours. The only way to avoid walking time would be to send out one agent with a very fast Pokemon. In a group though, you have to make sure that every single member is okay before heading along."

"Then why didn't we just send one person to start with. Why couldn't everyone just travel to the other base on vehicles?" asked Eric. It seemed that they had already figures out a good plan of attack, but that they were not implementing it.

One of Rica's drooling fan-boys responded y saying, "She just said this was a challenge. We're not allowed scooters or cars or any other vehicles. We also though that our team would have more pure power than stealth in the start, so we decided to try raiding the base. It's obvious now that we should have sent in someone alone, but we didn't send anyone with a fast Pokemon out there in the first place and it could just be wasting time to send another one out, or waiting for another time to send one." So everyone gave their two cents about continuing or putting a stop to the raid and when or if a stealth operative should be used to obtain the information. About halfway through all the rambling and arguments, Eric realized that he had not had anything to eat since the day before in Holon's Pokemon Center, and nothing new was being suggested. Quietly he picked Blaze up, set him back into the seat, and walked up to the cafeteria line. A gleeful Chansey severed him with the utmost gracefulness and Eric went back to the table and sat down after placing Blaze back onto his lap.

Just as Eric stuffed the last little bit of rice into his mouth, Rica announced, "Okay everyone, I think we at least know our options now. We really can't make a decision until we see what happens in the second attack attempt. If we stay we risk wasting time. If we go we risk an attack later if Red is just bluffing by sending no one out. I'll call you all back into this mess hall as soon as I get the news. Until then I wan you" and she glanced over to Eric who had just finished swallowing " to take your belongings into boy's dormitory room 5 and report to Station 7, you'll be given more directions there. Don't worry about getting lost, there's a map right on the bulletin board in the hallway." Then she once again addressed the group in general. "Everyone else, back to your normal stations."

So Eric walked out, along with all of the Pokemon and every other Blue squad member. Just as Rica had said, there was a bulletin board waiting right in front of his face. He peered over the map, but there was one odd location printed on the map, it said "Day 1: u." Had he really stumbled onto the first letter for his own teams password so easily? It seemed that something so important would be hidden better. Eric shrugged indifferently and looked back to the rest of the map, but there came an annoying tap on his right shoulder. Ready to slug anyone who would dare annoy him while he was trying to figure out this map, Eric spun around with his fists clenched as tight as a Hitmonchan's. All that appeared in front of Eric with a pseudo smile twisted along her face; so Eric resigned with a sigh. "Hey cute," she said with another bat of the eyelashes, but Eric replied with but a grunt.

"Look, I'll talk to you later," grumbled Eric for he saw that Blaze had already taken a head start toward their sleeping quarters. "Wait up!" insisted Eric as he ran faithfully to his Pokemon's side. Brittany merely rolled her eyes while she walked down the opposite end of the hallway. There would be plenty of time for them to chitchat in Station 7, even if her lure had not succeeded.

"Florina… what just happened to Eric?" asked Roxie as she pushed some hair out of her face (she had forgotten to put her hair up again today) and looked over her shoulder to face the stunned ferret Pokemon at her side. Florina could only squeak, the Furret equivalent of a shrug. As if to answer the question, the Kadabra reappeared and grabbed Roxie; Roxie would have to understand what happened if she went through it herself. As they all reappeared in the Team Red base, the Kadabra made a brief check to be sure it had dropped it "passengers" off in the right place, then Teleported off again.

Standing before Roxie was a guy she might have gone for had she not already been interested in Eric. He was about 5 feet 9 inches, Roxie's, height, he had long, wavy, chestnut hair that curled up at the end, vibrant silver eyes, a firm, friendly face, and a complexion somewhere between light and moderately tan. He wore a pink and white striped polo shirt (Roxie desperately wanted to pull the collar down), slightly ripped light blue jeans, plain brown sandals, and an oddly glowing crystal necklace. The necklace had a hole drilled through the crystal and a strap of leather (tied around the back of the guy's neck) running through it.

What was even more astounding, however, was the Pokemon gliding ever so carefully around the young man's head. Most of the Pokemon's head (which looked oddly like a helmet) resembled a star; there were rounded golden points on the top, upper left, and upper right and smaller, earlobe-like points hanging near the eyes. Two similarly colored wings flew out of the back of this Pokemon; they did not help the Pokemon to fly at all, but since they did look similar to ribbons, they did help with decoration. The rest of the head (the part under the "helmet") was small, about the size of a teddy bear's head, and gray. It had two large, cute eyes with two small green triangles under them and a mouth moving with amusement. The body and limbs, silver just like its head, were comparable to a Pikachu's in shape. The main difference was a third eye lying right in the middle of its stomach. The Pokemon was the legendary Millennium Pokemon, Jirachi.

"Hey, you must be Roxie," said the guy as his Pokemon plopped down into hair. Roxie just nodded, too stunned and bemused to give any other sort of reply. "Welcome to Team Red Headquarters. I'm Adrian, and I'm going to be you're leader on this mission. This little guy is Starsteel." It was then that Adrian noticed that Roxie was paying much more attention to the Jirachi dangling its legs in front of his eyes more than to him. With a chortle Adrian asked, "So, do you want to say anything before I tell you what your job is going to be?"

Something finally made Roxie come back, so she replied, "How… how is that Jirachi out right now? I thought that Jirachi could only appear while the Millennium Comet appeared in the sky, and that comes around only once every thousand years. The last time the comet came by was only about three years ago, and it appeared during some festival in Hoenn…" Florina hopped off of Roxie's head and toward Starsteel, an attempt to make play with her. Adrian ducked and Florina grabbed Starsteel, sending them both rolling a bit down the hallway. Both trainers laughed as they saw both of the Pokemon get up and get aquatinted with each other in a series of sniffs and squeaks.

"I was actually at that festival," said Adrian before taking in a deep breath. "It was for a summer vacation. I was so excited that week, and I wanted one certain trinket the whole time to remember the trip by. Every time we passed by the jewelry stall I would ask them if I could get this necklace," and he indicated his neck accessory. "On the fifth day of the week, they finally caved in and bought the crystal necklace for me. Supposedly it gathered energy from the comet for the entire week and charged it for the next one thousand years. My parents insisted that it was a gimmick to get my money, but I still wanted it because I thought it would make me a more powerful trainer. I didn't know it would help me this much though…" said Adrian before taking a glance down at Starsteel and Florina. They seemed to be getting along fine, so he focused once again on telling his story. "So when everything was done, that mad magician making the Groudon-monster and all, my parents looked around for the Jirachi. They had to, my mom was a TV reporter and my dad was her cameraman. All they found was this giant crystal, they thought it might have been what Jirachi reverted to. When the brought it within about one hundred feet of me, it flashed and Starsteel appeared; when they took a step back he turned back into a chunk of mineral. So my parents did report that they found what they thought to be Jirachi, but they never told anyone that he'd been reanimated."

Roxie shook her head for a few moments as if she did not believe the story, but she had nothing else to believe in. "But how did you get here from Hoenn, how did you get into this stuff?" asked Roxie, now enthralled with her team leader's story. It seemed that if he was not the best person strategically, he was at least very lucky.

Adrian raised his right eyebrow, surprised that anyone wanted to her more of his nonsensical blabber. "I'll tell you more later. We have to start working now or nothing's going to get done and we'll lose this thing for sure." So Adrian led Roxie down the hallway and they found Starsteel and Florina rolling around in a mock duel. With a laugh the trainers separated heir Pokemon and instructed them to follow their lead. Eventually the group ended up in a dark room with television monitors set up all along the walls.

Roxie looked around the room, and saw that all the displays were live feeds from security cameras placed everywhere in the hideout. "So… what exactly is my job around here?" asked Roxie as Florina hopped over to the control panel under the largest monitor.

"You have the twelve to four security monitor duty for now, but we act in pairs around here and I didn't have a partner before you showed up…" said Adrian, rotating his hand around as if there was a logical conclusion to be made from what he just said.

"But I thought you were the leader, you have to have more important errands than what everyone else has to do," said Roxie as she made her way toward Florina. Gently she picked the Pokemon up, sat in a revolving chair next to the monitor, and placed the Furret in her lap. With great care she massaged Florina's fur and concentrated on the television sets.

"Hey, everyone has to do their fair share around here. I'm really just they guy taking a poll on what we should do and making a final decision. The only thing I have over any of these guys may be that I'm more organized," said Adrian with little confidence. And so they went on inspecting the hallways, but it seemed that any human or Pokemon moving around was indeed a valued member of Team Red. Eventually Adrian said, "I didn't realize how boring this was. I didn't have to do it yesterday since we had to fight back a Team Blue invasion. I guess I'll tell you how I got into this mess, but you have to tell me first, deal?"

"Okay," agreed Roxie with a smile; her story was simple, or so she believed until she really thought about it. She stopped petting Florina for a moment and asked, "Can you help me out if I forget anything?" Florina gave a cheerful chirp, a yes, in reply. While taking a few moments to recall it all, Roxie took in a gulp of oxygen. "Well, it all really started six years ago when my sister, she was sixteen then, was visiting my grandparents in Agate Village. I wasn't allowed to go; we live in a really far off region and I was only nine then. One day when she was out sitting by the waterfall, she noticed something weird about a Pokemon, something completely dark about it. She ran to tell the trainer immediately, assuming that he would be concerned that something was wrong with the Pokemon. If my sister had been paying more attention to the news, she would have known that it was a Shadow Pokemon. The guy, a ruthless member of Cipher, caught her in a sack and hauled her off to Pheneac City. There she met Wes, fresh from rebelling against Team Snag'em. He won her over with his ideas of atoning for his wrongdoing."

Then Roxie looked a little lost. She knew what she had to say, but she was not sure how much she wanted to convey or in what order she wanted to say it. She let her eyes wander back down to Florina and asked, "So, what then?" Florina, using the fingers on her forepaws, made a shape like a triangle on top of a rectangle. "Oh yea. So they thwarted Cipher, Rui and Wes did. Rui found that Wes had nowhere to go, so she invited him to my hometown, he stayed in the Pokemon Center. Wes was educated by the scientists of Cipher; Cipher and Snag'em had a longer running alliance than most people though, and he was with Snag'em his whole life. So, he had absolutely no problems finishing up his junior and senior years of high school. I used to bother him a lot in those two years, asking him to tell me stories about all his amazing adventures. Slowly he told me more and more as he got more sociable. After senior year he decided, with a group of his friends, to start up a security company. They start out with small stuff, shops and stuff, but eventually Wes's fame caught up with him and my sis 'sold off' her Eye so that he could get advertisement. So here we are, four years later, waiting to be or already employed by that company."

Once again Roxie was lost in her own tale, so she looked to Florina for guidance. This time, Florina pointed up to a group of Pokemon meeting up with their trainer. "Okay, I see where this is going. Wes got me to join slowly, starting three years ago. I really want to be a nurse, but her roped me in. He let me travel along with some of the agents on some of the easier missions and heal their Pokemon. He also gave me Florina to help me with equipment ad so on, he could tell that we would like each other too. The next year he put me on harder missions until the week before I had to go back home; it was only a summer job. He asked me if I wanted to a mission and of course I told him yes. It was really simple, I just had to bust into a Cipher base and leave with a CD. My confidence was shot when I found out that the redhead that got all the media attention last year already cleared out the place, but I still came back with what I was supposed to have. This year my partner and I have real assignments, but we're stopped cold. Er, at least, we can't handle what we're up against yet, that's why we're here."

"Whoa," responded Adrian with shock written over his face. Starsteel hovered over to Roxie's wrist and pointed out the watch, it was exactly four o'clock. While the Pokemon flew back onto its trainer's noggin, Roxie flashed the watch at Adrian. "Okay, lets go to our next shift and I can tell you my story," he said while he got up and stretched.

After safely tucking away what little items he had in his bunkroom and after a brief scuffle over whom would get which bunk (Blaze took the top and Eric took the bottom) Eric carefully made his way to station seven. Carefully for he had not memorized the map well enough to restore his path should he have made a misstep. Sure enough, however, he and Blaze arrived before a large metal door with a sapphire seven impressed upon it. Eric and Blaze looked to each other, hoping to glean off the other an understanding of what would be on the inside. Each of them shrugged at each other feebly and Eric opened the door, which emitted a loud screech. From the looks of it, the room was a large, freezing warehouse. There was fog billowing out everywhere, ice all along the walls and on the floor, and piles upon piles of boxes of food stacked in neat aisles. Eric could tell that it was food because of labels marked "Torchic Fingers", "Oran Berries", and so on.

"Hey, come over here get out of the cold!" demanded a particularly high-pitched from the opposite side of the storage area. Eric and Blaze once again looked at each other, confused, but they continued walking. As the duo paced in the general direction of the voice, they noticed that it became warmer and warmer. Soon Eric noticed that the tabs on the boxes became "Pokeballs" and "Printer Paper"; perhaps the storeroom was divided into sections. "Oh, good, you're here Eric. Help me with this?" asked Brittany as she looked up from a clipboard. Cautiously Eric walked over to her and was handed another clipboard from her.

Eric, being blunt, said, "You shouldn't be here. I know who you are and you shouldn't be here." Without giving her a chance to retort, Eric looked down at the clipboard and saw a paper that had Inventory Check as the headline with various boxes to be checked and items and quantities next to them.

After a few moments of walking toward the boxes labeled with his first items, Brittany shouted, "Stop!" and ran after him. Blaze followed after her, walking very casually and slowly with his arms tucked behind his head. "How do you know who I am anyways? You didn't ever see me, I know that much. You're girlfriend sure did notice me looking at you though," she said with a shrug.

Looking at him? Roxie had never mentioned that to him, and he assumed that Brittany implied that his girlfriend was Roxie. Whatever the reason, it did not put Brittany in any higher standing in his mind than it had before. "She told me what you looked like, I'm unusually good at conjuring up images in my mind, Just get to the point; why are you here?" and this time he turned around, looked her in the eye, and paused, expecting an answer.

"Oh, they couldn't get me for anything. It's not illegal to use Shadow Pokemon, then they couldn't be purified. All I did was battle that silly little brunette girl. They couldn't get me fore plotting against the government; I didn't do any of the plotting. Heck, it would be hard for them to prove I was part of the Hexagons considering that I could have made the costume myself for a costume party that had been held on a different boat that day. I didn't have any information connecting me to them on me either. I'll admit to you that I was one of 'em, but that Gabe guy offered my a hand, I've seen the error of m ways… blah blah blah. All I know is I'm not going back to the Hexagons, they're just an unorganized group of imbeciles gaining power for no goal," ranted Brittany while looking absent-minded and playing with her hair. "So, are you ready to get to work?"

So they commenced checking off the supplies, Blaze, Eric, and Brittany, for one hour with not so much as a whisper uttered under one's breath. That was, until Eric looked over to Brittany and asked, "But why here of all places? You could have gone anywhere and you chose to go into a group of people that thought you were the enemy." Blaze looked up at the girl too, and nodded in agreement with Eric.

"Oh, fine. To be honest, I had nowhere else to go. If I had gone back to those idiots Hexagons, I don't think I could live with myself. Besides that, most of the guys weren't as courteous as all you goodie-to-shoes. If I chose to reject the invitation Gabe would have just dug up dirt on me and land me in jail, or I would go off wandering around like a beggar. At least here I know I'm getting something done, that I'm going somewhere…" muttered Brittany, very unsure of herself. Eric could tell that she was genuine about it though, and felt that he had no reason to hold a grudge to her. Well, other than that stuff about Roxie, but it didn't matter much since he was with her… Or was he? They never said anything to each other about it.

Annoyed after checking almost hundredth box, Brittany screeched at no one in particular, "Why do I have to do this at all? Its not like we'll need to restock any time soon and we couldn't even if we wanted to. It just doesn't make any sense." Still, even through all her protesting she continually checked all of the boxes and found no faults whatsoever.

Eric pondered her question for a few moments while Blaze went on checking the supply of Tentacruel Ink pens. Eric replied, "Well, if someone wanted to come in here from the other side quickly, they would have to pack lightly. Where better to get some supplies and rest up than in a giant storage room f you're in an enemy headquarters. This way we can tell if someone is sneaking around or stealing stuff. As for all the stuff that's here… They probably do this exercise a lot with this group, or maybe they do lots of different exercises with the same group here. Plus it's for the trainers and all of the Pokemon that they have." For the next few hours, they continued to work and chitchatted. Mostly about the game and its various rules and regulations.

By they time they had finally finished, it was about seven o'clock, time for dinner. Brittany looked to Eric and said, "Oh, and by the by, I'll be needed my Pokemon back… thought they won't really be themselves will they?" and sulked off to the cafeteria. Eric asked Blaze to get them some food and bring in back into the room and the rooster Pokemon agreed with no resistance. So, having nothing left to do, Eric tossed himself into his bed (which was covered with blue sheets displaying various water Pokemon). Noticing that he finally had some downtime, Eric pulled out the horde of colored pencils that he had received from Wes and his sketchpad from his backpack. Then he just sketched all that he had remembered himself wanting to sketch since he started his adventure, starting with Blaze.

When Blaze finally came back into the room with pizza covered in Grumpig pepperoni and some cola. Eric presented him with his sketch, and the Combusken smiled and gave it a thumbs-up, or as close to a thumbs up as one could get without a thumb. As Eric munched on the pizza and sipped the soda, he looked through he flipped through his sketchpad and admired his work. He was sure to be famous for something involving art someday, he thought. Then he realized that for all his drawing he had not ever made a self-portrait. So he picked up a pencil and scribbled away until he had a very good likeness of himself displayed on the page. There was something wrong though, no, he decided that wasn't it. There was something missing, something that he had gained on his travels. He tried drawing in Blaze, which seemed to help the sense of completion, but it still was not enough.

Figuring that Roxie might know what was missing from his picture, he pulled out his PDA and began to type. In mid sentence he realized what was missing, but he decided that he should still check up with Roxie. So, he deleted what was there before and wrote anew.

Roxie had not noticed how hungry she was until Adrian mentioned that they were on cooking duty for dinner that day. So before any food preparation began, Roxie snacked on a few spare Chilan and Pumkin Berries that were lying around, Adrian explained basically what they were going to do. "All we have to is heat up this food, serve it and clean up, then we're done for the day. It sounds pretty easy, but each thing usually takes about an hour."

They fell into a sort of rhythm after about fifteen minutes with Roxie and Starsteel cutting up fruits and veggies (Roxie with her hands, Starsteel with his telekinetic powers) while Adrian and Florina loaded and unloaded anything from pizzas to pastries into and out of the oven. "Do you want to her how I got into this mess now?" asked Adrian as he took a step away from the oven n and wiped some sweat from his brow.

"I just have one thing to ask," returned Roxie without looking up from her cutting bard. "I heard on that newscast, the one you mom did, that Starsteel here can teleport. Why don't you just use him to get the clues for you or teleport you over to the Blue Base? And what about that Kadabra that dropped me off here; you could have used him too."

"The Kadabra was only to bring you here, its not partners with anyone on the base. As for why I don't teleport with Starsteel… well, I would have to go with him since I have the necklace, and if for some reason the necklace falls off or isn't touching me, I'll be stuck in a kind of 'resting world' between transit. It's only there to give the attack time to figure out if there's already something solid existing in the spot where you want to be and either moves you to a space nearby or waits until that space is unoccupied." Adrian did not much like to dwell on being caught in this fifth dimension (where it was said Ghastly traveled before thy evolved) and instinctively clutched his crystal necklace.

"Well, I guess it's my turn to fess up about why I'm here," he said as he let the precious chunk of mineral fall into his chest. The suspense gripped Florina and Roxie so greatly that Florina would have had a fried finger and Roxie a stubbed hand had not Starsteel take the most discrete control of their muscles. As Starsteel released his telekinetic grip, Adrian said, "Oh, I didn't mean for it to sound too exciting," with a slightly flushed face. "My mom moved to Orre; she was tired of fighting the best of Hoenn and being a field reporter and she was offered an anchor job over here. My dad was offered the job f her cameraman too. She followed the Shadow story and Wes closely, and a couple months ago she had an interview with Gabe. He noticed me watching throughout the taping behind the set, and asked me to battle afterward. I lost, but it was close, and he asked me if I wanted to do… well, this over the summer. My mom and dad agreed after a bit, and I'm here now," with a small shrug.

For a while longer they chatted, and in no time at all it seemed that the time to serve the food came. Most of them seemed nice enough, especially the older guys. Some of the younger men though took one look at Roxie and either sighed or gave Adrian a thumbs up; some immature Pokemon did the same thing. Most of the girls seemed irritated and avoided eye contact with her, though their Pokemon seemed interested and playful. After a majority of the group was happily fed, Roxie, Adrian, Florina, and Starsteel dined. During a downtime, Adrian offered to do the clean up solitarily, gave Roxie a map, and pointed out her room and a few other quarters that she might be interested in visiting.

After doing many exercises in the gym not a minute's walk from the cafeteria, Florina and Roxie sat down for a break. Before them was a television displaying Adrian's mother reading from a teleprompt with a creative set resting behind here and a lump with a lumpier head, blue rings around its head, a stinger-tail, and nonfunctional wings on its back laying next to her hand, a Shadow Dunsparce left over from the previous Shadow Project attempt. Although both were deeply immersed in the story of the leftover Shadow Pokemon and how the government planned to purify them, Roxie was dragged away by an incessant ringing coming from her backpack at her feet. She plucked the PDA out of her backpack and looked over an e-mail from someone a day's walking distance away.

At first Roxie was reluctant to give any information about Adrian and Eric was withholding what he had learned about Brittany. Eventually each side gave up, however, but personal feelings were for the most part excluded. Despite her burning hatred for any girl that would even to dare glance at Eric affectionately, Roxie agreed that people could turn over new leaves even if they did not believe in themselves. She had retold the adventure of Wes departing from Team Snag'em after all. She also agreed to hand over Shadow Jigglypuff and Shadow Ditto which she had hauled around with her and she took the two Electabuzz back into her party. Eric meanwhile had to tinker with the Snag Machine and the Pokeballs until they reverted back into Brittany's trainer number. He decided to take Antoinette and Shadow Tropius around with him while he was managing Pokemon in his and Roxie's Pokemon Storage Boxes. Both sat down in bed before the end of the day wondering what tomorrow could bring with what they had discovered that day.

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Side Notes:

-Lots o' back story in this one. O-o I almost wish I had put some action somewhere in here, but it never seemed appropriate.

-I hope that no one is disappointed in the fact that I decided to add elements of the anime (Jirachi: Wish Maker), and RSE (the TV Reporter and her cameraman, I forgot their names. :P)

-Sorry it took so long. I blame school, my father's newfound interest in a computer game, TCG tournies, and… my own procrastination and short attention span. . 


	16. Ex: Cutting Off the Supply

It had been a while, but with the Psychic abilities of a Mewtwo and the muscle to bully anyone he needed into spilling the beans, the Phantom found himself on a far off island, though it was closer to the Orre region than any other. It was densely populated with Pokemon much like the Phantom with odd types for their species. So far he had encountered an Electric Nidorino and a Fire Nidoran (Female) claming that their parents were captured by a strange new Pokemon species covered in neon-colored flesh and metal plates.

The Phantom knew this group of humans well… They deformed into becoming a Fighting Pokemon, but in the process he lost his tail. Yes, it would be just a matter of time for someone of the terror group named the Hexagons to appear. Through his amazing tracking skills, the Phantom deduced that this organization was using the island to supply Pokemon for their schemes. Any Delta Pokemon (the name for Pokemon with unnatural types) were taken and many normal Pokemon were exported so that their hearts could be disconnected from them artificially, making them Shadow Pokemon. Some would also end up as the Phantom, put through days of pain and agony just so that they could be come Delta Pokemon with modified physical attributes instead of modified elemental attributes like those natural of the Pokemon born on this quaint island.

The Phantom sighed, the Nidoran and Nidorino behind him, as he made his way out of forest and onto beach. There a makeshift dock was set up, and it stank of the Hexagons. This was definitely where the Pokemon were being exported and where the Hexagons arrived, but when would they arrive for a new shipment? "How long ago was it since your parents were taken?" the Phantom asked his pair of companions.

The Nidoran was shy, but the Nidorino answered, "About fifteen moons by the way I reckon it."

"Hmm…They would have to have a small boat to get past here without someone noticing them, but they can only take a few Pokemon. They'll need more Pokemon if my partners have been doing their jobs; so they should come back soon."

"And you're going to stop them? How?"

"I'm part of one of the more powerful species, or so I'm told."

"…We're going to fight with you."

"Very good, but I'll need to know your names then."

"I'm Kilallan and my sister is Kiaikua"

"Very well, Ki and Kia."

So for the rest of the day the three took turns waiting the horizon for boats with the other two scavenged for food or firewood to use in the night. The night did come, and no sea vessel of any kind had arrived on the island. Ki stomped out the fire that his sister made with an Ember attack so that the trio could get some rest. Without all the ambient light, the sky was quite bright with the stars and a full moon, so the Phantom had to pull down the hood of the cloak he was wearing over his face so that the light would not bother him.

The next day the first thing that caught the Phantom's eyes when he flicked back his hood was a silver motorboat speeding toward the island. His first thought was to crack a hole in the bottom with his telekinetic abilities, but Ki hopped up, roared and broke his concentration. "Whatcha' doing Phan?" asked Ki as her picked himself up and trudged over to a breakfast of berries.

"I was about to blow a hole in that small ship there."

"What? You don't even know if that's the Pokemon we're after."

"They're not Pokemon and no one else could know about this island."

"Still, there could be Pokemon on that thing!"

"Fine, we'll do it your way. Hide yourself and your sister behind a bush. If they look like the 'Pokemon' that took your parents, attack."

So they waited, and sure enough a skinny man covered in yellow spandex and golden armor arrived on the island. It looked as if the only Pokemon with him was a dog-like creature with a large, mostly yellow head and a lean, slender blue body, a Manectric. Seeing as there was only one, the Phantom gave his new friend the signal to go out and fight alone. Ki shrugged with his left foreleg and hopped out snarling. The man calmly pointed to Ki and yawned, "Shadow Discharge."

Flickers of purple and yellow filtered out of the Manectric and formed themselves into five copies of the attacker. As the copies moved in, the Phantom took a stone out of his pocket that shone like the moon from the night before and flicked it at Ki. When the stone made contact with Ki, he glowed and was left completely different. He ended up with large purple ridges down his back, and enormous tail, a sharp horn on his forehead, and fierce claws ready to rip apart any material.

Suddenly full of confidence, Ki hopped over the copies and went straight for the Manectric and smashed its face in with a heavy punch. The Manectric was too tired from letting go off all that energy before to counter attack and Ki the mighty Nidoking kicked him aside, knocked out. The human, still calm, tried to return his Pokemon with a Pokeball he had hidden in his fist. Ki stood in the way and roared at him, sending him scampering back into his boat. Ki was ready to strike at the man, but the Phantom said, "No, we need someone to go back and tell them to stop coming here." Ki stepped down, slightly annoyed and distraught that he got so caught up in the battle.

The Phantom flipped out a PDA that he had obtained over his traveled and sent a message to one of his friends asking him to look out for a Nidoking and a Nidoqueen that a Hexagon might be carrying around.


	17. Chapter 16: Day 3, Hardcore Training

Chapter 16: Hardcore Training

Eric awoke with an itchy warm feeling originating from right above his nose. Luckily on this day Eric did not sit up and rub his eyes as he normally would. By simply opening his eyelids Eric exposed himself to a roar of violent yellows, murderous reds, and deranged oranges flickering above his face. When the flames finally stopped flowing, Eric looked over to the door leading out to the hallway. Sure enough he saw Blaze finishing off a Flamethrower. "I asked you to wake me up, not roast me!" complained Eric, but Blaze knew that he did not care for his tone was jovial and he was grinning.

After a brief shower (Blaze took one too, he was surprisingly tolerant of the water) Eric sat back down on his bed with his PDA and began to make himself a new get-up, starting with the shirt. It was tight, black had a large green slime background, and the words "The Muks" in spiked white font and a picture of a Muk holding a guitar on top of it. Though he did not revel in stereotypes, Eric admitted that he might come off as 'emo' if he made the pants tight too. He copied the pants from Roxie's original outfit for him and made them a bit baggier, he liked them more like that anyway. He put a key chain with the same Muk on his shirt at the end and he gave himself a black cap with the same Muk on the front. Eric decided to wear the cap backwards-fashion on his head.

Just as Eric hooked up the PDA to his leather jacket's pocked, Blaze walked into the room with a towel, drying off his lean fighting legs. As he looked up from his drying, Eric's transformation was complete and a look of jealousy spread across Blaze's face; at least that was how Eric interpreted the emotion. While walking up to Blaze with PDA in hand, Eric asked, "Now what's your problem?" Blaze's utensil for communication was not needed, however, because Eric was finally able to read Blaze's body language. "You… like The Muks too and you want stuff like what I have on?" questioned Eric cautiously. Blaze nodded energetically, a first for him Eric noticed. So Eric grabbed a hat identical to the one atop his head out of his backpack and placed it upon Blaze's skull sideways. It made a humorous effect, but Eric dared not to laugh for Blaze most likely would have wrecked him.

Together they walked out into the hallway and happened to pass by Rica. She was accompanied by a gray and black furred wold with a blaring red nose (that reminded Eric oddly of Rudolph the Red Nosed Stantler), uninterested ruby eyes, and a proud head always looking upward as if it was better than anything else. Rica was wearing the same clothes she had the day before though they were slightly ruffled and her eyes were bloodshot. After taking a sip of coffee Rica said, "Head over to the gym, Eric. The team that went to storm the other base last time has returned and since the type match-up obviously did not favor us with the last team we're shipping anyone who was here out. You're going to do a bit of training first though."

"You're not coming, are you? You need some rest, you'll be in no condition to leave today," Eric stated, concerned.

Before walking down the hallway with her Mightyena, Rica said, "I suppose you're right," with a sigh.

Blaze and Eric looked to each other, and both shrugged then continued toward the gymnasium. Blaze led the way because he had memorized the map from the day before. The gym was basic, four battle areas on a wooden and glazed floor, a Pokeball shape painted in black in the middle of each arena, and bleachers to both sides.

Everyone Eric has seen at the cafeteria the day before, including Brittany and Rica's drooling fan-base, had gathered in the center of the room. Some guy with messy, wavy dark brown hair, slightly tired copper eyes covered by large glasses with thin hazel-colored rims, a large baggy red shirt advertising some video game with a Pokemon battle simulator, light blue jeans and plain gray sneakers did a head count. Eric thought the guy looked a bit sloppy, but he was obviously organizing whatever this training was because he said, "Okay, everyone's here now so we can get started. This will be a single elimination tournament based on a style made popular in the Hoenn Region. You'll be mad known of three of the Pokemon that your opponent may use and choose the two that you will use based on that information. I'm sitting this out sine you'll have an even eight without me and I'm the only one qualified to judge these matches." Then he pushed his glasses up with a smile.

"First battle Brittany and Chandler. Go to that area," and he pointed "and share which three Pokemon you plan to use thought this tournament and any other information you feel should be included."

"Eric," Brittany whispered to Eric pleadingly.

"Huh… Oh!" Eric exclaimed before tossing the Pokeballs of the S-Series Pokemon to Brittany. "Wait… Won't you still be down one Pokemon?" pondered Eric.

"Nope. I found one yesterday wandering outside the base. No problem for an expert trainer like me," she said with a wink.

"Second battle Eric and Joshua," said the messy organizer as he pointed to another part of the stadium. A kid with short blonde hair in a plain white button-up dress shirt and tan dress slacks walked in the direction that the other guy had pointed in. Eric followed him and they met up at one end of their designated area.

"I have Medicham, a Lombre, and a Golduck. What about you?" Joshua asked casually.

"I have a Combusken," _Which I obviously can't use since all of you Pokemon have a type advantage over it_, Eric thought. ", a Kirlia, but its Psychic and Dark type, and a Tropius and that one is a Shadow Pokemon."

"…A Shadow Pokemon? You must already be on missions to have one those. I have a feeling that this is going to be an interesting battle…" Joshua did not give Eric a chance to reply before walking over to the opposite side of the arena. He took two Pokeballs that somehow clung to his shining black belt off and said, "Well, choose your two." Eric took out Antoinette's and S: 029's Pokeballs from his backpack. Each threw out their Pokeballs as Blaze sat down next to Eric's feet with a sigh. Out of Joshua's Pokeballs materialized a Medicham and a Lombre, some of the oddest Pokemon Eric had seen. The Medicham had a slim gray body, bold red lips, odd baggy red shorts (or was it part of the Pokemon's body?) with a yellow point on the knee, and an odd red hat (that also could have been part of its body) with three yellow points on the forehead similar to the ones on the knees. The Lombre most resembled a frog, but it had a giant lily pad on its head, had an oddly lanky body, and had a bill not dissimilar to a Psyduck's. Joshua did not waste a second after Eric's Pokemon appeared. He turned to his Medicham and said, "Try using Ice Punch on the Tropius!"

The Medicham grinned and pushed out its fist. A light blue aura curled over the hard for a couple seconds, then a solid layer of ice was left over the hand and the aura disappeared. The Medicham rushed up at its opponent, but the Tropius stayed where it was, not even flinching. Noticing that an Ice Punch would be double super effective against a flying and grass Pokemon, Eric screeched to his Tropius, "S: 029, Shadow Dart on the Medicham!" The Shadow Pokemon, however, continued to stick in its spot. That was until it looked like Medicham was a bout to make contact; that was when the Tropius rocketed into the air, avoiding the Medicham's attack. "Psychic to send the Medicham back," Eric said to Antoinette and she took telekinetic control of the Medicham, hovered it back to its corner on the arena, snapped, and let the Medicham come plummeting down to its doom.

The Medicham recovered quickly, however, and its trainer looked at both of his Pokemon curiously. "That Kirlia could be a nuisance… both of you, Dynamic Punch on it!" So both obeyed, and both ran up to Antoinette best they could, but Lombre was probably more used to water because it dawdled on slowly. Medicham made a swing and a miss; leaving Lombre wide open to slug Antoinette. As she landed next to Eric, Tropius swooped down at Medicham with a strong purple mist pointing like a dart building around it. Just as when Medicham was about to make contact with Tropius, when they were close to make contact again, it flew back to its place next to Eric. The large beam of shadow energy, however, crashed into Medicham's head and sent it wobbling back to its trainer.

By this point, Eric was feeling like an idiot. He left Antoinette open to an attack that inflicted confusion just when he realized that he had an attack up his sleeve that would have worked much more effectively on Medicham. Oh well, it was just going to have to be a risk he had to take, since he could not swap out Pokemon. "Antoinette, Shadow Ball on Medicham," he asked of her. She seemed to be following through well enough; she held out her palms and it looked as if energy from the room was being drained into a gain ball in them, but instead of launching the sphere at Medicham she smashed it into her own face like a clown with a pie. Blaze sighed and shook his head, but there was nothing else Eric could do.

"Medicham, try another Ice Punch on Tropius. Lombre, Astonish the Kirlia!" Lombre disappeared in a flash of smoke while Medicham frosted over another fist and ran toward the Shadow Pokemon. Lombre appeared before Antoinette and poked it quickly then ran back to its spot. The Kirlia was thoroughly surprised, surprised enough not to be able to attack on its turn.

Eric knew he should have Tropius Dart again, but the description that the PDA had given to Shadow Spore left much to be desired and Eric was interested. "S: 029, Shadow Spore when the Medicham is close!" Eric shrilled out to the plant Pokemon. Just as the ice scraped Tropius's leaf-wing, Tropius emitted a small cloud of dark spores. Medicham's face instantly turned green and it fell over, knocked out from poison.

Joshua gloomily returned his Pokemon in pale red light and said, "Ah… try a Hydro Pump on the Kirlia!" The Lombre opened its mouth and spit a long hard stream toward Antoinette, but at such a great distance accuracy was not guaranteed and the attack missed.

Then Eric saw his shot to finish it all off. "Antoinette, Psychic! S: 029, Shadow Rush!" Antoinette held the Lombre up in the air, flailing, while rammed into it head on. Joshua returned the Pokemon without checking to see how it was and told the judge that he was conceding the match. Eric also recalled his Pokemon after telling them that they did well. Eric and Joshua met up in the center of the gym to shake hands and Joshua said, "I look forward to another battle later…"

It seemed that everyone else's matches were over before Joshua had thrown the match and they had all been watching Eric's match from the bleachers. He noticed that some were at a healing machine and took his Pokemon there too. He hoped that no one had gleaned any battle style off of that, but then again he wasn't sure that he had one, mostly he just stuck to weaknesses and improvised. He was sure that someone would poke holes in that if they had the chance; not good. Eric too worried to notice that the judge had called his name and that Blaze was dragging him toward until he noticed that his opponent was Brittany. "I already know your three," and she paused to yawn "So the one I captured yesterday was a Girafarig."

"And I thought this would be easy if I just slugged your Pokemon with Blaze," Eric commented; Girafarig was the only Psychic and Normal Pokemon yet known. Even though part of it did have a disadvantage to Blaze, it was balanced out by its second type and it had an advantage if it was using a Psychic attack on Blaze. The advantage that he had was worth it, Eric decided, and said to Blaze, "Head on in, bud," with a smile and tossed out S: 029's Pokeball. From Brittany's side there came that puffball with a whip of hair on its forehead called Jigglypuff and the Girafarig. For the most part it looked like a normal giraffe; it had a long neck and that up-side-down pear-shaped head with to small hors that looked rather like antennae at the top. It, however, had a white face, red ripples down its spine, was colored yellow in the front with dark brown dots and bark brown in the back with yellow dots. In addition, its tail was actually a head, which very much resembled a Chain Chomp… if it was nearly one thousand times smaller. It was astounding; Eric had heard of Girafarig before, but it was nearly unconceivable up close. He wanted to remember it, so he took out his sketchbook and a pencil.

"Huh? What are you doing?" remarked Brittany, expecting Eric to bark off an attack to begin.

"I'm sketching your Girafarig; I'm a Pokemon Watcher," said Eric as he started on the tail.

"This isn't an art gallery, it's a battle!" whined Brittany before turning to her Pokemon. "Let's take care of that Combusken before it becomes a nuisance! S: 007, Shadow Roll! Girafarig, Flash!" The Jigglypuff curled itself into a ball and rolled with out moving on the floor, gaining momentum. With no warning it suddenly blasted at high speeds toward Blaze, it could prove to be a devastating attack. Then, suddenly, all Eric could see was white light lowing forcefully throughout the entire gymnasium. When it finally dimmed, Eric saw that the light did not originate from his opponent's Pokemon, but Blaze… Blaze had evolved. He had more than doubled in size, giving him a much meaner demeanor. The feathers on most of his body were dark, almost blood red and the feathers on the bottom of his leg were orange, the opposite from before. His eyes had changed from a fierce yellow to a concentrated yellow, his beak extended out in two directions, making a V in hi forehead and his head feathers had turned gray and grown longer, making an x symbol on his chest and an upside down.

Eric was so surprised by the change that he forgot that he muttered "C-counter," when Blaze put his right foot out. Jigglypuff ran right into the leg, and Blaze winced from the pain, but with a simple tap of the balloon Pokemon it flew back to its spot twice as fast as it had rolled over to Blaze and landed there with a crash. Eric did not see Girafarig do anything, but Blaze was starting to wobble so he figured that his opponent had mentally blinded Blaze. "Man, you evolved at just the right time Blaze! Okay Tropius, lets see if we can't get Jigglypuff out of this with a Shadow Spore!" Tropius let the purple shadow spores seep out of his body again and made a strong wind with its wings, sending the spares floating right into the opposing Shadow Pokemon's nose. It seemed unaffected, however, and then Eric thought that while Shadow Pokemon had obvious advantages in battle, they would have to have weaknesses, such as their attacks not working well on other Shadow Pokemon.

"I guess all cute guys are idiots," groaned Brittany with a dramatic pseudo sigh. "Oh well, all the better for me to win this. S: 007, Disable the overgrown poultry!" The little powder puff must have been purified enough the day before while battling the Girafarig to regain one of its attacks. It made a furious waddle over to the Blaziken, but he put his foot out again and tripped Jigglypuff so that rolled gently back to its spot; Disable was not well known for being an extremely accurate attack. "If I can't completely stop you from attacking, I might as well push chance in my favor. Girafarig, Flash again." Once again, nothing was seen, but Blaze became even tipsier.

Even so, Eric was not at all troubled to say to Blaze, "Lets give the Jigglypuff a Sky Uppercut!" Blaze no longer needed to run over to his opponents to strike, he leaped to the opposing Jigglypuff, picked it up, tossed it in the air, and gave it an amazingly swift uppercut that sent it nearly into the ceiling. It came down floating like a parachute, but Brittany knew that it was over for it and returned it. Eric realized then that Blaze had ridded the battle of the Pokemon it had an advantage over, so it did not matter if his attacks would hit or not. Still having curiosity for Shadow Spore's full effects, Eric asked for his Pokemon to try it out again. So the Tropius did as it had before, and the Girafarig gladly gobbled up the gas, both ends of it; Eric figured that the spores smelled appetizing so that it lured in Pokemon easily. Its tail-head's eyes turned pink, and in the shape of hearts while the other head had swirls in the eyes; both sides' heads were green. Poison, confusion, and infatuation, not bad, Eric thought.

"Oh, not good!" whimpered Brittany while she took a moment to think. "Gah… I need more time… Protect!" Then, suddenly, a giant white field appeared around Girafarig; unfortunately it imploded and shards of it fell onto the Pokemon, it must have attacked itself in confusion.

"Blaze, take it down with a Fire Blast!" Eric figured that if he was going to have a Pokemon with lowered accuracy he might as well try an attack that required luck in the first place. "S: 029, Shadow Whip!" While Blaze shot out a blast of fire that nearly mauled Brittany instead of her Pokemon and pair of vines came from Tropius and speed toward its opponent. One vine flipped its opponent into the air while the other slammed it back down to the spot where it had been before. Then one eye on both heads squinted, most likely because the poison was setting in… or maybe because it was in great pain from being slammed into the floor.

"Psybeam on the Tropius!" Brittany blurted, not having anything better to do. The Girafarig stood up, but did not move for its back end seemed to be gazing deeply into Tropius's eyes. Without Eric's instruction, Blaze blasted out another Fire Blast, which would have barely scorched the giraffe Pokemon's side had not it wobbled right into the attack at the last second. Then the Pokemon just fell over with X's replacing the swirls and hearts in its eyes. Brittany quietly returned her Pokemon and gruffly told the tournament organizer about her loss. She stormed over to Eric and said, "Good… match," through her teeth.

"Well that sounds amazingly sincere," Eric sarcastically whipped as he returned S:029. He saw Blaze nod is agreement, then smile. It was odd to see a Blaziken smile, Eric thought, for he had always thought of them as the ultimate hardened fighters. Another odd thing that he noticed about Blaze was that because his shape became a little more… human-like, the hat did not look so ridiculous on him.

Eric just barely made out Brittany saying "Sorry, I'm not so great with the sportsmanship…" through the roar of an attack from the other battle. "Usually I just wail out with my full power on opponents and shove it in their faces. Now that I'm with the 'good guys' I guess I have to 'reform' though," she pouted.

"Don't worry, I'm sure you'll get used to it," replied Eric, almost completely unconfident. Blaze tried to hold back a chuckle as an awkward silence broke out and Brittany just walked away. "… Weird," commented Eric as he looked over to Blaze. "Hey, what's so funny?" he demanded. Blaze just shrugged as if to tell Eric never to mind. Eric aggravated Blaze over it until they came upon the healing machine, but Blaze said nothing else.

Eric had just set up for his next battle with by far the most powerful opponent he had met. In her possession there were two ghost Pokemon, a Gengar and a Dusclops and an Ice and Psychic Pokemon, Jynx. The downsides? Eric noticed the obvious; the ghost Pokemon would probably trump Antoinette while the Jynx could easily take care of Blaze and Tropius. If this was not enough, each of them were capable of learning multiple attacks not of their type that would deal super effective damage to his Pokemon. Eric had Antoinette against the ghosts, Blaze against Jynx, and Tropius against anything. It was a tough decision, but seeing that Blaze had just evolved, Eric wanted to help purify Tropius more and wanted to get experience toward evolving Antoinette. His opponent, an eleven-year-old girl in what looked like a school uniform with a long blue shirt and how had long silver hair and forest green eyes, chose Gengar and Jynx.

The Gengar was oddly shaped, but for some reason the word ghastly dwarf came to Eric's mind. It was small and pudgy like a dwarf, but the likeness ended there. It had large bright red eyes, a toothy smirk, large pointed ears, and ridges flowing down its back into a pointed tail. The Jynx was even more disturbing with its blobby, Ditto-like face, large red lips, short silver arms with pudgy purple hands at the ends, and an odd long red dress. What was worst, however, was the blonde bleached hair because Eric could not tell if it was natural hair or a wig. They were not ideal companions for a young girl, but certainly powerful guardians.

They were able to show their force at the beginning of the battle; the little girl said, "Okay Sprite, lets get it started with an Ice Punch on the Tropius!" with a giggle. "Kish, blow it away with a Blizzard!"

Smirking, Eric called out, "S: 029, Shadow Dart!" What Eric had forgotten was that if his opponents were faster, the attacks would hit anyway. The Jynx quickly spilled out a fury of sharp shards of ice that scratched against Tropius and blurred its vision. While it was disabled, the Gengar flew into the hailstorm and smacked S: 029 with an icy fist. When the blizzard finally subsided, Eric saw that his Tropius was limp and cold on the floor. With a sigh, Eric returned his Pokemon. "We're still in this with a bit of luck! Antoinette, Crunch the Gengar!" Antoinette somehow grabbed hold of the creature made of ectoplasm and sank her teeth into it. Normally a physical attack like that would not work on a ghost, but dark attacks were special, they had some quality that just tore through ghosts. Gengar, however, looked as if it was in a cakewalk.

Then Eric realized that there was nothing he could do, the Gengar would have to greatly out-level Antoinette to glance of an attack like that. "I forfeit!" Eric cried, not wanting to see Antoinette crushed like Tropius was. His opponent just nodded and returned her Jynx. While Eric sighed and returned Antoinette, the little girl wandered up to Eric.

"S-sorry about that…" she mumbled as her Gengar 'sat' on her head. It was really floating still, but right above the young lady's head.

Eric looked down at the girl and grinned. "Never apologize for winning." Just then Blaze held up a piece of paper on which he had written, "Especially when you far outclass someone." Eric groaned and said, "Ignore him. You really did deserve it."

"B-but it really wasn't fair. I only won because my Pokemon are stronger… you probably had a better strategy," whined the young'un.

"You had the better strategy outside of battle though. You can't have been training that long since you're pretty young, yet your Pokemon are the most powerful out of any of ours'."

"I guess I did have a pretty good training for these guys… My brother taught me how to train though."

"Your brother must be pretty good at brining up Pokemon then. I bet he's a pretty good breeder."

"He trained the Swalot that drums in The Muks"

"Whaaaaaaat!"

Eric would have asked the girl more, but the nerdy guy, it turned out that his name was Allan (Eric heard someone talking to him during his battle.), said, "Congrats on the win Kitty. I think you'll get something by the time this is all over, but I'm not really sure. Either way, everyone should just leave your Pokeballs here. I'll heal your Pokemon and you guys can grab some lunch. Then we're heading out."

Everyone handed Allan his or her Pokeballs and he looked rather ridiculous trying to balance himself under that pile. "Blaze, could you please help him? I'll grab some lunch for both of you." Blaze gave Eric an annoyed look, but he walked off and grabbed the pile out of Alan's hands. Eric shook his head, already confused by this day in general. All he wanted to do was grab lunch and get along with their invasion of the Red Base.

When Eric finally grabbed his lunch and looked around, not everyone was sitting at the same table as they had before. Nine more people were present too, though there were only ten people new to Eric; Rica was absent. Seeing Kitty and Brittany sitting together, Eric made his way to their table. When he sat down, Kitty greeted him by saying, "Oh hi Eric," with a smile while Brittany played with her mashed potatoes and a spoon.

"Howdy Kitty. Hey, do you know why all these people are here?"

"Oh, they were the group that came back."

"Ouch, no wonder they all look so… out of it. I hope we're not looking like that in two days."

"Don't worry. Everyone had good battles today so I'm sure we're all strong enough to make it."

"So you were saying back after our battle…"

"My brother? Yea, he trained that Swalot, and they still get together every once in a while. We even have some tickets for their next show, but we don't have any friends that can go and our parents think they're too old for it so…"

"No way! You're gonna give ME tickets?"

Kitty nodded happily and looked over to Brittany, "And you too, if you want to go." Brittany just responded by nodding and sticking a spoonful of spuds into her mouth. Eric was about to ask Brittany what the heck she was being so shy about when Blaze and Alan, with all the Pokeballs, entered and Sprite appeared next to Kitty's tray and started eating her food.

As Blaze pulled up a seat, sat at the table, and made disappointed faces at his food, Eric told him, "Guess what! Kitty has some tickets for a Muks' concert and she's hooking us up with some!"

Blaze looked up from his food quizzically from his food and right at Kitty. "…Aren't you a bit young to be into them?" he asked while sticking his fork though a piece of Tauros steak. Eric and Brittany stared at Blaze in total awe; how did he start speaking!

"Oh, I meant to tell you earlier when Eric said I was young too; I'm thirteen… I just look really little… and I'm shy at first." Now the other three were staring at Kitty, trying to figure out how she made herself look almost four years younger.

"This is getting way too weird," muttered Brittany as she got up, took her Pokeballs from Alan, and walked out of the cafeteria. Once Brittany was gone, the other three got down to talking. Blaze's vocal chords changed during evolution; it was not normal for a Blaziken, but it was the only way it could be explained. Kitty told Eric that all Pokemon were admitted free to the concert as long as trainers with tickets accompanied them. So Eric could take someone else too, hopefully Roxie.

Kitty was not all excited about talking about her appearance, but both Blaze and Kitty jumped in when Eric asked about Brittany's newly developed bashful nature. "I think she likes you," both of them said; though Blaze said it in a mocking, deep voice while Kitty tried whispering it to him shyly. Eric's faced flared red and he cupped his hand over his lips in astonishment. Did their chatting yesterday come out as flirting? What about their battle today; did she really think there was something between them from that? Worse yet, what would he tell Roxie?

Within the hour, the group of nine was out the door, freshly supplied and into a thick forest. Eric noticed that this was probably western Orre, because most of the rest of Orre was a complete desert. Blaze confirmed this by flying up into the trees and looking around. Sure enough there were enormous trees all around blocking view of the other team's base and oddly enough there were mountains surrounding the whole area. Everyone now knew why he or she had to be teleported in (or flown in some cases).

It was clear than Allan had been left in charge by Rica, he told everyone where to go, carried all the maps, and made sure everyone was okay as they traveled along. For all his skills, Eric wondered how adept Allan was in battle; he was somewhat disappointed that he would not be able to see for himself since they were on the same team. It was even more frustrating because Eric had not even had a chance to glance at one of Allan's Pokemon! How was he supposed to trust this guy in battle if they had some sort of confrontation with the other team?

When finally they came upon a clearing that was not overpopulated by insect and plant Pokemon, the group decided to set up camp. Everyone was supplied with a tent and Allan helped anyone who could not figure it out for him or herself. Quite a few people went out to collect firewood, and one poor soul was almost poisoned by a territorial Ariados who sprang out of a bush. Blaze started up the fire by unwrapping one of the bandages on his wrist part way, let the flames fly onto the wood, and wrapped the bandages back on. Everyone gathered around the fire to eat some disgustingly salty Pidgy jerky and a handful of sweet trail mix, but there was not much chitchat. Everyone was exhausted from walking through the dense, dark, depressing forest, keeping an eye out for dangerous Pokemon, and in some cases tripping over some critters.

Bedtime finally came and Eric told Blaze that he would have to return to his Pokeball, that there was no enough room in the tent for the both of them. Blaze protested incessantly, and Eric finally gave in because he figured that it was cold in the forest and that Blaze would supply more body heat than a person could. The duo arranged their tent so that they could lay down and rest without making physical contact with each other. It was relatively quiet, but Eric was restless and he could not figure out why for the longest time. Eventually he realized it, Blaze was such an unoriginal name for a Blaziken! Eric sat up and poked his companion in the stomach while asking, "Are you still awake?"

"I wouldn't be if you would leave me alone."

"I was just thinking that your nickname is a little… lame…"

"I was wondering when you would say something about it. Have any ideas?"

"Well… one, but I swear that you're going to hate it."

"Get on with it then."

"Chick Magnet?" Eric suggested shyly.

"Oi… Okay, but there's one condition."

"Are you serious?" Eric asked with a snicker.

"Sure, why not? But you have to call me Mag for short."

"Fine with me!"

So it was a peaceful night in the cramped little tent, but it made Eric wonder what he was even trying to do here. He did not feel like he had down anything of great significance for his group in the last two days, which irked him. At least it really was Blaze's name giving him the insomnia and not this; otherwise he would have been up for hours longer.

Comments:

-Sorry its been so long guys, but at least its finally here, right! XD

-Yes, I do believe that the breaks are still necessary even if I'm not adding in Roxie's half of the story as I originally planned. 

-When I thought this chapter out, it sounded too much to me like filler… so I decided that with all this battling that Blaze/Mag was doing, he should evolve. That makes it important and not filler. 0

-I hope you guys don't care that Mag can talk now, or about his name change. w 


	18. Chapter 16: Day 3, Hardcore Training R

"Bagon!" screeched a Pokemon somewhere near Roxie. She swam up through the water, though she had no idea how she became emerged in it to begin with. Instead of being greeted by a rare dragon Pokemon in the cave Roxie found herself in, she saw a large bagel with legs. "Bagel!" it shouted while she realized the water was warmer and dirtier than she had originally thought… or was it just coffee?

Roxie shook her head and took a sip of the cup of java in her right hand and held her left hand close to her shoulder so that Florina could nibble from the bagel held there. Roxie realized that she was daydreaming and just a few minutes ago Adrian sent an urgent message to her PDA, but it was quite lacking in detail. Starsteel hovered raced around the door to Adrian's room as Roxie walked up to it. There was a note that read:

"Sorry Roxie,

Starsteel work up early got into the coffee. I was going to ask you to take care of him later because I have a meeting with our tactician, but I guess you get to start your job a bit early.

Once again, sincerest apologies,

Adrian"

Attached to it by tape was Adrian's Millennium Fragment necklace.

"Oh, so he gets to sleep while I baby sit?" Roxie muttered as she ripped the note of the door and tossed the necklace on. When she thought about it though, it was more important for him to get sleep considering that he was the leader and he was going to make a large strategic decision later in the day. With a yawn she motioned for Starsteel to tag along and he happily sipped over her head and promptly sat in it. It was quite annoying to have the little bungle of energy jittering with caffeine and rattling her brain, so it was a welcome change when he flew off of her head after she stepped outside of her team's base.

Much to Roxie's surprise there was a thick forest and mountains clustered all around in the distance, she was not expecting the exercise to be in western Orre. She was even more surprised to see two Pokemon exiting the forest. One was short, stumpy, and blue with a skinny little neck and arms. It had the beginnings of a gray shell that it would complete after evolution on its head, but it looked oddly like a mullet. The other Pokemon Roxie mistook for a mountain in the forest… it was a giant lump of brown fur for crying out loud! Upon closer inspection, Roxie found a pig snout and slightly chipped white tusks though. The Bagon and a Piloswine were staring up at Starsteel who was going summersaults in the air. Those Pokemon were more common to caves… like the types that were most likely in the nearby mountain range. Seeing a chance to purify S: 001, get rid of a bit of Starsteel's extra energy, and catch two new useful Pokemon, Roxie tossed out the Shadow Electabuzz's Pokeball and yelled to Starsteel, "Psychic on the Bagon!"

Starsteel effortlessly hurled the Bagon into a tree and with the flick of his finger. Bagon winces through the pain, but the tree, amazingly, stayed in tact. It was just that moment when S: 001 appeared and with his fist glowing purple and yellow smashes his fist right into the Bagon… then the tree toppled. The Bagon would not go down without a fight, however. It hopped up into S: 001's stomach as hard as it could. Though it didn't do much damage, it did distract S: 001 before he could jump away from the Piloswine's Earthquake attack. Because Starsteel had tired of flying and landed on a tree, he too felt the effects of the earthquake. The tree Starsteel was in toppled down, leaving Starsteel, the Bagon, and S: 001 under it. Starsteel was quick to recover, however, and shrugged the tree off to the side wit this telekinesis.

Great, now Roxie had to extremely damaged Pokemon to deal with in battle. If that wasn't enough, Roxie's Shadow Visor flashed a waning message and the shadow aura around S: 001 grew larger and red. S: 001 had entered Hyper Mode. Roxie had quite a few choices on this turn and she would have to make them before the wild Pokemon struck again. The Bagon was most likely damaged enough now for capture and Roxie planned to throw some sort of Pokeball at it, but if she also chose to call back S: 001 and help its purification, she would be left with no time to instruct her Pokemon to attack…

Quickly Roxie made up her mind and called " S: 001!" to calm his blind rage and tossed an Ultra Ball at the dazed Bagon. S: 001 went back to its normal sate of what looked like absolutely no feeling while the Ultra Ball beamed the beaten Bagon square in the head. The Ball quickly scooped up he Bagon in a swift yellow light, fell to the ground, wobbled for a second, then disappeared into Roxie's and Eric's shared Pokemon account. Roxie did not remember about that last part for quite a few moments and was disturbed by the disappearance of the ball.

Meanwhile, the Piloswine slammed its feet into the ground once more and created a second Earthquake. The tree that Starsteel had attempted to move rolled down the earth and mauled over Starsteel and S: 001… again. It was evident that Starsteel was still up because the tree started to float again, right over Starsteel's head. S: 001 didn't look so got though, he was bleeding on his right limbs and at his sides and he was obviously knocked out. Wincing, Roxie recalled S: 001 and sent Florina into battle. Whit just a point of Roxie's finger, Florina hopped off Roxie's shoulder and ran to Starsteel's side.

Roxie had yet another taught choice to make this round. She had taught Florina a perfect attack for this situation with the aid of a Delta TM… but they had never actually used it in battle. It was awfully strong to use in the confined areas that they had found themselves in and Floirna may have nearly forgotten how to use it by then. But another chance she would have to take. "Florina… Meteor Mash!" she hollered cautiously; she didn't even bother to give Starsteel instructions.

Florina froze for a moment and looked back at Roxie for confirmation. Roxie merely shooed her on with her hands. Florina slowly nodded back at her; then ran right up into a tree. She jumped down and made her forepaws into fists. Those fists glowed an odd silver color, then flamed up as Florina fell nearer and nearer toward her target. The Piloswine was too intrigued to move; he had no idea what was coming to him when Florina smashed right into his side. There was a loud bang, a cloud of dirt flew up, and then everything went still. Florina quickly hopped out of the cloud that her impact made and scurried back to Starsteel's side. When the dust finally settled, there was an enormous crater in the ground with at least ten fallen trees. Under one tree there could be seen the wiggling leg of a Piloswine. Roxie tossed a Great Ball into the pit. Eventually it rolled down to the squirming leg, captured the Piloswine without much of a fight, and disappeared.

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Roxie had a heck of a time explaining the giant blast that woke everyone up when she got back into the base. It turned out that she was not at all the only one with an early start that morning. Because of Roxie's 'disturbance' she got the most annoying job of all that day, cafeteria clean up. Because Adrian was having his strategy meeting, the second in command had doled out this task to her. After about an hour on mindless sweeping, moping, and trashing banana peels and plastic packaging with Florina's help, Roxie was finally finished.

She ran off to the self-service Pokecenter the minute she was finished. After switching out Buzz for her newly captured Bagon, then named Godzuki, and healing her Pokemon and Starsteel she figured she would stop by Adrian's room and see of he was done figuring out a strategy yet. In the hallway, however, she ran into two girls who started to drag her in the opposite direction. Both were dressed in denim skirts and plain black tees. It was easy to tell them apart, however, because one had a much longer nose than the other, her brown hair done up in a bun, and thick-rimmed black glasses while the other had long-flowing red hair and an odd black headband.

"What?! Are you… the blue team?" asked Roxie, staring up at the redhead. "Look, I don't know any of the letters to the password!"

"Ha… your mind is till in this stupid little game," answered the brunette. "We have no interest in that pitiful little code."

"All we want is revenge! Revenge for stealing Adrian from us and waking us up way the frick too early."

Roxie sighed and let the girls drag her on. "Look, Adrian and I just met… I don't have anything going on with him, I just want to see if we can win this thing."

"Whatever, he still likes you… and you have no reason to use a Meteor Mash attack so early in the morning," leered the bun lady.

"We'll give you a chance to fight back anyway. We'll see if that stupid little Meteor Mash of yours can stand up to our attacks."

Then Roxie saw where they were taking her. It was the base gym, not the one for trainers, but for Pokemon battles, and it looked that there were four courts and enough room to use whatever attack one want without brining down the whole building. Roxie could already tell she was going to have fun with this, finally she could feel free to let her attacks loose. There was still the question of her opponents though… could they take down a Shadow Pokemon and Florina… and what if she actually had to throw that poor Bagon into battle. Yes, she was excited, but also cautious and calculating.

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After a bit of trash talk, the girls released their first two Pokemon, a Walrein released by Roxanne (Roxie chose to call her that because she did not like to think of that girl and herself sharing the same nick name), the brunette and a Charizard from the redhead, Ash. The Walrein was an odd sight to Roixe, especially on land. Its head was large and white, its tusks long and pointed, its nose similar to that of a pig's in size, but a deep sky-blue in color. Its body was the same color, except for two light blue rings around the chest. Aside from the flippers, the body reminded Roxie much of a dog; maybe it was just the way the Walrein was sitting. Its tail had a rather odd shape, similar to that of a Weavile, an evolution of Sneasal that she heard about on a TV special about the Shinou region. The Charizard, meanwhile, was just plain menacing. The body was just as large as the Walrein's, but everything else seemed longer, leaner, skinnier, and overall more powerful. Its tail lashed about like a whip with a flame at the end while the head snarled and glared, angered, at Roxie. She got a good picture of its flared nostrils and the two ears (Or were they horns?) that stuck out of the back of its head.

What a nice strategy, Roxie thought. Charizard would cover Walrein's Steel weakness perfectly and Roxie suspected that the Walrein knew Earthquake to compensate for Charizard's Thunder weakness… and Charizard would not take a lick of damage from it. Florina and S: 001 were vulnerable to that Earthquake, but if they could take the Walrein out before hand… and they would not know that Florina was a Delta Pokemon an S: 001 a Shadow Pokemon for at least a turn. Plus Godzuki would be even more vulnerable to some ice attack from Walrein… So she tossed out S: 001's Pokeball and whispered over her shoulder, "You're up, Florina." Roxie noticed that they were an odd pair, Florina prancing around and itching to battle while 001 stood absolutely still and awaited commands.

Swiftly those commands came, Charizard and Walrein were to use Flamethrower and Ice Beam respectively on Florina while Florina lent a Helping Hand to S: 001's Shadow Bolt on Walrein. The Charizard swooped a bit closer to Florina and simply snorted… The effect was a jet of flames that threw Florina into a wall. She quickly recovered, however, and hopped up onto S: 001's head. The Electabuzz lowered its head a bit and out of its antennae shadow energy and electricity gathered around Florina, strangely not harming her. Without warning, Florina was flung off of S: 001'a head and within the blink of in eye she was ramming into the Walrein's stomach. She bounced right back to her place on the battlefield sans shadow energy or electricity. The Walrein, however, had been thrown a couple yards back and nearly hit a wall. It made no movements within a reasonable amount of time, so sighing, Roxanne said, "Shadow Pokemon… no fair," and recalled her Walrein.

Next to appear from Roxanne was a Steel Pokemon of her own. It was another heavyweight, with an armored skull, a long pointed nose, steel horns pointing foreword, shining steel claws, and a clumsy wagging tail. The Aggron took two steps foreword as its trainer strapped its Pokeball back to her belt. Roxie could have sworn that the whole base shook at that moment… it was probably worse than Florina's earlier disturbance.

Roxie figured that Charizard wold be much more of a hazard if she just let it sit out there… but could she leave herself open to a possible Ground attack from Aggron? Yes, she thought, the Walrein probably knew Earthquake, so why bother teaching it to another Pokemon? The orders came flying once more, S: 001 was to stop Charizard in its tracks with a Thunder Wave, Florina to use Surf, Aggron to smash Electabuzz's head in with Focus Punch, and Charizard to keep the flames coming on Florina. Luckily for Roxie, her big fuzzy yellow got the first shot that round and flicked a weak spark of static electricity from its hand at Charizard. Charizard seem to rock back and fourth a bit, but it couldn't move. Aggron held up its fist and readied itself for a good shot at S: 001. Unfortunately for Roxanne and Ash, Florina seemingly conjured up a wave from nowhere and rode it right into the opposing pair. Aggron lost its focus and both Pokemon were slightly buffed. Florina jumped onto the wall and quickly jumped from the wall back to her position by Roxie's side.

Ash checked up on her Charizard's health and noticed that it took much more damage from that attack then she expected. "What the heck! There's no way that that Furret is at a high enough level to do that… It must be water type! … Somehow." Great, now they had already discovered two out of three of Roxie's big tricks… the last one being Meteor Mash. She was not even sure if she would need to unleash thought one though… While Roxie mulled over how to keep her last surprise up her sleeves, Ash made a substitution. The paralyzed Charizard disappeared in a rosy haze and in similar color appeared what seemed to be a bipedal sheep. It was quite short, about four and a half feet tall, but it had a long black and yellow-stripped neck. It had a similar pattern on its ear-horns (What was it with these girls and horns?) and tail, which ended in a shining red orb. There was a similar orb on its upside-down teardrop shaped head. Great, Roxie had to deal with an Ampharos, a Pokemon she'd rather have on her side because of its cuddleability and power rather than fighting against it.

The battle cries flew a third time.

"Aggy, lets test Ash's theory with a Thunder Punch!"

"Ack! We need to stop that attack! One more Helping Hand- Shadow Bolt!"

Once again Florina hopped up on her partner's head, waited for him to finish charging and… bang! Florina torpedoed right into the poor Aggron's head, sending it spinning. Roxanne did not even bother to see if her Aggron was knocked out, she knew it would be after a hit like that. Aggron's stand-in came out of a timer ball, and there was a faint ticking noise when it appeared. Roxie could understand why it might take a while to capture this Pokemon. It had large green wings with a red outline and a light grassy green tail that ended in three spikes with the same pattern as the wings. It had a lithe body, small, grabby hands, and a large head with what looked like red goggles covering its eyes… or were they eyes. Another odd feature was the Pokemon's dark green horns that bent back similarly to Charizard… but they were flimsier; perhaps a better word would have been antennae. In any case, Roxie knew exactly which Pokemon this was, a Flygon. While more often thought of for its Dragon capabilities, Roxie knew that it would be even more powerful against her as a ground foe.

Roxie had a few moments to thing as Ash swapped back in her Charizard, most likely for the Flying immunity to Ground type attacks because Flygon was about to let lose an Earthquake… Roxie could take a great shot at doing massive amounts of damage to the Flygon while Ash took her chances with Chaizard's attack and Roxie was fairly sure how Flygon was going to act… Or she could sacrifice Starsteel, who was whizzing about above the battle, or Godzuki, or even both of them to keep Florina and S: 001 in play… Bur she knew that Starsteel was possibly her most powerful asset and she had a strong feeling that her little Bagon buddy would do something amazing during this battle.

"Blast Burn on the Furret!" yelped Ash with a sinister grin.

"You know what to do here, Gon," Roxanne encouraged her Flygon.

Roxie sighed and played with her hair for a moment. "Ack… well, it has been working for us… Helping Hand – Shadow Bolt on the Flygon!"

Flygon was up first… and it dived right into the floor of the stadium, creating an enormous rumbling sensation. Soon bits of splintered wood and earth from the stadium and flew toward Charizard, S: 001, and Florina. Charizard was able to break out if its paralysis long enough to flutter above the wreck and fall back down before getting damaged. Florina and S: 001 were nowhere near as lucky. Both were buried under a pile of wreckage by the time everything settled down, but they were able to burrow out. Florina was sweating and panting, but S: 001 was still his stiff old self. Another Helping Hand and Shadow Bolt combo went off, sending Florina spiraling square into the now fluttering Flygon. Flygon flew dangerously close to the ceiling, but broke the attack before that and swooped back down to its trainer. Charizard once again immobilized by S: 001's Thunder Wave.

Again Roxie's Shadow Visor popped out before her eyes and revealed a swarming nexus or flaming shadow energy around S: 001; he had once again entered Hyper Mode. Using her PDA, Roixe checked up on the Elecatubuzz's status… it was close to complete purification and calling it back could be thing to push it over the edge. Besides, Roxie had Godzuki and Starsteel still waiting on the bench if Electabuzz or Florina were knocked out. Roxie whistled, waved, and yelled "S: 001!" Roixe saw the Shadow Aura dim down to its normal purple flicker as the Shadow Visor flipped back.

"Florina, another Surf!"

"Gon, take care of them with another Earthquake!"

"Try one more time with your Blast Burn!"

Florina rode another waving into the opposing pair. Flygon started to topple over, but Roxanne returned it before it could hit the ground again, she wasn't sure if Charizard would be able to pick itself up again if there was another Earthquake. Charizard spit out a few small embers around Florina, who tried to cautiously back away, but before she could gain enough distance, the embers flared into pillars of flame, constantly prickling and burning Florina. It was plan to see that by the time the attack ended the Florina was down for the count.

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Roxie could not make herself look and choked back tears while she recalled Florina. Not wanting to leave Starsteel open to a devastating attack like that, Roxie tossed out Godzuki's Pokeball. He stretched a bit, then looked up at his opponents and gawked. In the end, Godzuki was hiding behind S: 001.

"Um… Ash… I'm all out, can I borrow one of yours?" Roxanne muttered to her partner as Roxie checked up on Godzuki's attacks.

"Ug, you're so wasteful!"  
"It's not my fault! My Pokemon have been more of a threat so she's been targeting me."

"Oh, whatever, here you go." Ash rolled her eyes and tossed a Pokeball, not the Ampharos's, to Roxanne.

Roxanne tossed out the Pokeball and out of it appeared a frog-like Pokemon. It had a wide grin with two large pink cheeks at the end of either side. On its head were two large, expressional brown eyes and one curly little hair that dangled in front of its forehead. The Pokemon's body was mostly green, but on its stomach and feet and hand pads there was a golden yellow color. Only one part of its stomach was not yellow, a little area of green in a swirl. It began to hop around giggling, "Politoed, Politoed!" while clapping its hands. Everyone but Ash just stared at it for a few moments. The Politoed smiled politely back at everyone.

"What! Ash, you took Politoed? I can't believe you didn't take-" Roxanne exclaimed, but Ash butted in.

"Sush! I already had Ampharos for that and … she doesn't need to know about him anyway," Ash whispered to her partner dismissively.

"Oh, fine, whatever. What kind of attacks does this thing have anyhow?" Roxanne pulled out some electronic device and Roxie assumed that she was checking out the attacks. "Oh! Politoed, Metronome!"

Charizard could not attack this turn, so Ash did not even bother, but Roxie was able to blurt out, "Godzuki, Protect!" before it happened. The Politoed started jumping around again and instead of clapping it waved a particular finger. Roxie noticed that if the Politoed was human than that would have been considered a major offense rather than an attack. Soon the odd dance was done and the Politoed looked around curiously. Without warning, a white light appeared that blinded all the trainers. When they finally regained sight, they saw that all the Pokemon on the field but a Shelgon were knocked out.

"What the…" Ash began.

"…It was an Explosion… and Godzuki gained so much experience from both of your Pokemon fainting that he evolved!"

Ash glared at Roxanne and said, "Oh, I'm so tired of you, you…. You freaking screw up! First you get all of your Pokemon knocked out and then you knock out two of our own!"

"Hey, I knocked out one of her Pokemon! Plus how was I supposed to know it would be an Explosion? It's a random attack for crying out loud. Whatever, I'm going to heal my Pokemon and see what's up with the training mission." And after she returned Politoed and its Pokeball that was exactly what she did.

"Fine, I guess I'll be fighting you alone!"

Starsteel attempted to fly into the battlefield, but Roxie stopped him short. "I want to do a one-on-one, Starsteel."

"Pfft, you just got rid of your biggest advantage, idiot!"

"I just want to show that I can beat you all on my own," said Roxie with a shrug.

"Whatever, let's just finish this! Amp, Charge!"

Roxie looked at Godzuki's stats on the PDA. It had forgotten Headbutt and learned two new attacks. "Godzuki, Focus Energy!"

It was an odd strategy, but Roxie admitted that the results were still up in the air. On one hand, Roxie had just given herself a great shot at a critical hit. On the other, Ash had just charged up an attack, even though Godzuki was resistant to it. Thunder attacks were also known for paralyzation, which could put a wrench into Roxie's plan. Either way, Godzuki hunched down and readied himself to pounce. It looked as if the Ampharos was completely yellow now with the energy it had gathered around its body.

"Thunder!"

"Double-Edge!"

The Ampharos discharged all of the energy it had saved up and it made a stunning jolt toward the ceiling. After a quick bounce it raced toward Godzuki, who was already jumping toward Ampharos. Just as Godzuki pinned the overgrown sheep down, he flew back from the force of his own attack. After a millisecond to recover from the attack, the Thunder hit him. It was plain to see that both Pokemon were not able to battle. One knocked out by sheer force and the other horribly burnt even through its resistant dragon skin.

"I guess it's a tie"

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What an ordeal! Roxie thought as she healed her Pokemon in the machine for the second time that day. That was a full out fully evolved Pokemon party that she defeated with one Pokemon tat had evolved once, a basic Pokemon, and a Pokemon that was lucky enough to evolve in the middle of a battle. There were also Godzuki's odd attacks… it knew Protect and Toxic, attacks it could normally learn under a trainer's guidance with a technical machine. There were three obvious answers Roxie came up with however, Godzuki was trained and abandoned, it had known the attacks since birth because its father had been released and TM attacks pass through generations, or a combination of both. Its parent had known it and it was abandoned after it was born or as an egg. Whatever the reasons may have been, it had made a great difference in that battle and there was no doubt of it.

Curious, however, Roxie let the dragon out of its Pokeball. It instantly smiled and took Roxie down with a weak tackle. It must have enjoyed battle by her side. Now that she was closer to him, Roxie noticed just how different he had become. It was more like a cannon ball than anything in its little dragon cocoon. All that could bee seen other than the cocoon were blue, scaly legs with red stripes and glowing yellow eyes bushed back somewhere inside. It was a little odd, but irresistibly cute, so Roxie allowed him to lick her face for a few moments before playfully pushing him off.

It was then that Starteel zipped to the door of the mini Pokecenter because Adrian had appeared at the door. "Hey Roxie… you up for a trip?" he asked as her offered his hand to help her up. Roxie did not see the hand because she was too busy continuing her analyzation of Godzuki and got up on her own. Adrian quietly recalled the hand before she really did see it.

"A trip? To where?" Roxie looked down as Godzuki went to check out Adrian. As Godzuki sniffed around Adrian's feet she saw that they were no longer clothed in sandals. Instead there were beat up brown leather boots. "Some place that might require some more durable clothes?" Roxie said while looking back up at Adrian and smiling.

"For sure. Half of us are going out and we're going to try to invade the other team's base. We'll try to be more careful and stealthy than when they tried to sneak in on us though. The strategist and I thought it over and there just seemed no other way to end this without a tie." Adrian put his hands in his pockets and looked at Roxie nervously while Starsteel landed on his head.

"Just let me get some stuff packed up and I'll be right along with you," Roxie said while releasing Florina onto her shoulder.

"We're not in a rush, I'm giving everyone an hour's lunch while some of the people who aren't traveling and I are going to pack up the supplies we'll need to travel with."

Roxie said goodbye to Adrian, gave him his necklace, and rushed up the steps to her room. After grabbing her backpack and putting all her things back in it, she rushed toward the dining hall. It was then that she remembered she had never checked S: 001's Shadow Gauge after calling for it. "He Florina, could you grab my PDA?" Florina unzipped the front most pocket of Roxie's backpack, got the PDA out, and tossed it over Roxie's shoulder. Roxie grabbed it and looked over S: 001's status information. It was ready to be completely purified.

Sighing, she went to the nearest PC. There was one more thing to take care of before she could take a lunch break. Roxie knew that when she put Pokemon into "storage" they really went to a lab-tech somewhere on Wes's estate. That Lab-tech released the Pokemon into an enormous fenced in area around the house where all the Pokemon were kept. He used an Alakazam to teleport them back and forth when a trainer either stored Pokemon or took them back. Roxie slipped in a note about putting S: 001 in a Purification Chamber before it was released; she knew Wes had them somewhere though he probably had little use of them. She looked at the Pokemon left in the box and decided to take out the Delta Pidgeot, she liked having a Thunder Pokemon on her team and had always thought highly of Flying Pokemon. She decided to rename it Wakinyan or Waki for short.

At lunch she sat to a table all to herself and Florina. She was not the most popular girl in the group after needlessly waking everyone up and tying two of Adrian's fan-girls in a battle. She was so bored that she did not even recognize that she was eating and stuffed it into her mouth. Eventually a horn sounded, and everyone cleaned up. Those who were on the offense mission followed a couple feet behind Roxie as she walked to the storage hangar. Everyone with a backpack was given an extra package of potions and food and anyone not carrying a backpack carried a full bag of rations and other healing items.

As Roxie walked along in the forest she wondered what happened to her curiosity about bug Pokemon. Now she was just afraid that one would jump out and poison her for invading its territory. There were plenty of trainers carrying antidotes, but the thought was still frightening. As a consequence of her fear, she inched closer to Adrian as the night came nearer and nearer. She was not quite sure if it was because she thought he would defend her somehow or because she thought she could use him as a shield.

Eventually everyone was ready to give it a break so they set up for the night. They ate hotdogs; Roxie never was quite sure what Pokemon they were made of and didn't particularly need to know. The only bug Pokemon to wander around were Caterpie and Wurmple and most everyone just fed some trail mix to them. Roxie was used to missions without Pokemon or vehicular transportation, so she knew how to set up a tent if she needed to rest for a night. She unrolled a sleeping bag that came with the extra package she had to carry and picked up the small pillow that came with it. Roxie scooted into the bag, put the pillow down, and laid her head on it. There was just enough extra room for Florina on the pillow, so she slept next to Roxie's head as she normally did. Roxie did not fall to sleep as fast as her furry little friend did. Partly she was worrying about Eric, if he would suspect something about her not sending him a message that night. Mostly she just felt something ominous; not any trouble that night, but that something would go disastrously wrong the next day. Eventually she was able to but her worries and herself to rest.


	19. Chapter 17: Day 4, Reverse the Ambush!

Chapter 17: Day 4, Reverse the Ambush!

Mag and Eric were sent out early to inspect the trail ahead while everyone else ate breakfast and geared up for the day. They ran into quite a few bug Pokemon, but when investigating alternate routes, the infestation was even worse. Eric guessed that most of the kids in this exercise were from Orre and therefore not at all used to real wild Pokemon, not the ones found using Poke Spots. This was fairly decent training if they ever had to travel to other regions. Eventually Eric just had Mag dash through the path and knock out any hostile Pokemon. This meant that Eric and Mag would have to stay ahead of the rest of the group though, and he would have to send a signal to his teammates. "Send up the flare, Mag."

"Gotcha' Eric." He had been ordered to send up a Fire Blast if they were going to come back and take a new path, a Flamethrower if they were going to stay ahead and clear up the Pokemon, or just to come back and report if the path was clear and they were going to travel down the same path with the rest of the group. Careful not to burn any of the trees, Mag let out a stream of fire that lasted for a good seven seconds. If no one noticed it, they would just have to make a decision by themselves.

Eventually the scenery became boring and the duo ran out of things to talk about so they just left each other to some pensive travel time. There were hardly any Pokemon either; it was fortunate for Mag who was staring to run out of Power Points for his attacks. Eric and Mag were suddenly ripped out of their thoughts by an odd rustle. Hopefully, they thought, it wasn't another Anorith trying to rip them to pieces. "Oh, its you again." Eric turned around to see an old man dropping out of a tree like a ninja. The voice sounded familiar, but Eric never remembered meeting one of the famous Elite Four of Kanto and Johto. Indeed it was Koga, in his green ninja outfit with red cuffs and his short, billowing red cape.

"Excuse me," started Eric "Do I know you?"

"You really don't know who this is Eric?" Mag asked, shocked. "And I thought you were bright."

"Oh, shut it you."

"Ah, yes, of course you know me as Koga… former Gym Leader of the Fuchsia City Gym and Former Member of the Elite Four."

"Wait… you're no longer one of the Elite Four?" asked Eric, a tad confused as to how such a great trainer would get kicked out like that.

Koga laughed and smiled, "Unfortunately I got back into espionage and started to care less about fighting rising Pokemon Trainer stars." Suddenly Koga's face, which seemed not to have ages along with his gray hair, suddenly became deathly serious. "But that's beside the point… You probably know me better as Poiseon."

"Ah! That explains why he… I mean you helped us back in that base," said Mag.

"And I'm here to help you again, by tipping you off. The rest of the Peons were able to invade the Pokecenter and hold everyone inside hostage. They're waiting for trainers to come so they can snag Pokemon. Apparently someone was able to cut them off from their recent suppliers, so the Peons are forced to snag. They heard about this training exercise through on of their own I suppose, I assume it's just a coincidence that you're here. An expert such as Wes would have made sure you weren't in some way bugged."

"Oh my god…" Eric mumbled. "I can alert my team by going back, but you have to go check the other side of this place, my friend and her team have to know about the ambush too."

"Hmm…" Koga was obviously mulling something over. "There have to be at least ten of you per team if you're going to travel as a pack. That's more than double the current number of Peons that actually have Pokemon, and that's including me. If I fight against them when you appear and we can get both teams to fight as one…"

"We can probably take all the Peons down." Blaze finished.

"Okay, but only if you can locate the other team. If you can find them, have one of their Pokemon shoot up a fire attack. When you're near the Pokecenter, use a water attack. We'll have a water attack when we're near too," said Eric calmly. He was surprised by how levelheaded he was being about this ambush.

"You two are getting good. The peons think there are all types of Pokemon in this forest, so it won't too odd to them when they see those attacks flying out of the forest. I'll be on my way then."

With no further warning or goodbye, Koga hopped back into the trees and disappeared. Eric and Mag ran as fast as their feet would carry them to get back to the rest of the team.

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Roxie awoke earlier than most everyone else at camp. She looked at the clock on her watch; it was still an hour until they would be up. Careful not to arouse Florina from sleep, Roxie got up and looked around in her bag for her PDA. She still was not satisfied that she had learned everything she could about Godzuki, as far as battles went. Then she noticed something, Godzuki had the Rock Head ability; it was impossible for it to have been knocked out by recoil damage, the knock out was all Ampharos's doing. There was no need to tell Ash though, or so Roxie thought. That battle knocked her down a peg, which was exactly what she needed to focus more on training and to become a better agent.

Feeling adventurous, Roxie slipped away from the tent and climbed up one of the trees. The only Pokemon around were Weedle and they were not known for being over territorial, so she was not particularly afraid of being attacked by any Pokemon. So quietly she sat for all of a couple minutes before she saw fire flaring out from the opposite side of the forest. Using her reasoning skills, Roxie remembered that she had captured a Piloswine, which typically preferred cold climates, not warm ones that were typical for fire Pokemon… So it probably was a fire Pokemon, and it most likely did not come from the cold mountains nearby… Therefore it was part of the opposing team. They were on the move then… she figured they would travel straight toward the Pokecenter from there. So letting her teammates sleep for a while longer then telling them to redirect the course would not be a problem. That fire was far too far off for them to be coming soon…

After a half an hour of lazy bird watching, however, Roxie heard a disturbing rustling coming toward her. Without further warning a figure appeared on a branch a tree away from Roxie. Caught completely off guard, Roxie scrambled and lost her balance, sending her straight off the branch. Roxie heard another rustle, and the mysterious figure had grabbed her by the arms and was pulling her back up. With a sigh, Roxie allowed the person to let her go and scrambled up on to the branch again. Obviously this thing wished her no physical harm, it had saved her from death. Roxie nearly fell down again when she noticed that the face was that of former Kanto Elite Koga. "Wha- … why… why are you?"

Koga smiled as he jumped onto another branch and let Roxie spread out a bit more on hers. " I don't have much time for you to be confused. I'm going to have to go over this fairly quickly, okay?" Roxie nodded and stared, dumbfounded. "Good. First of all, I was the one who helped you out in the hexagon base; I'm Posieon. I knew they could not be up to anything favorable for Orre, so I intervened on my own. I see the chance now to take care of the rest of the Peons with the help of everyone in this exercise. You see the Colorons were planning a surprise attack on you… once you reach the Pokecenter in the center of this area. The opposing team, specifically the friend that came to rescue you at the base has been informed. After I leave, you're to send a fire attack flare. When come in upon the Pokecenter, send up a water attack flare. If you see the other flare first, go in and attack. Otherwise wait for the other water flare to attack. Understand?" Roixe nodded again and Koga disappeared in the blink of an eye.

Roxie quietly climbed down the tree as the rest of her team awoke and lazily dressed. Was she really supposed to believe that that figure was Koga? For all she knew, it was a very elaborate scheme by the other team involving a Ditto or costumes. But… he knew about everything that happened in that peon base that Eric had rescued her from… Unless Eric tipped them off about it, which did not seem like something he would do… but would her teammates believe her?

Adrian was one of the people finally aroused from sleep. Roxie cautiously made her way over to him. He smiled at her weakly and said, "Oh, I guess you got up early…" Starsteel was hovering over Adrian's shoulder, being his normal peppy self. "Anything exciting happen?" he asked with a doubtful, joshing grin.

Roxie laughed nervously, then sighed. "I wish I could say no."  
Adrian nodded happily for a moment, then what Roxie said registered in his mind. He instantly became fully awake. "What happened"

"I… look, you know I was on a mission before I came to do this thing right?"  
"Yea… you and a partner. That's why you were late."

"Well… it seems by a big coincidence… the people we were tying to track down have decided to Snag the Pokemon from all the up and coming kids in my brother's company. They've taken over the Pokemon Center in the middle of the area."  
"How the… how do you know all this?"

Roxie sighed and covered her face in embarrassment, "Would you believe... we have a well known vigilante spy in the enemies group who has finally reached out for help?"

"Well-known?"

Roixe administered herself a good mental kick for that. "Koga… the famous ninja and former member of the Kanto - Jhoto Elite Four."

"Roxie… I believe you… but no one else will. There has to be… some way… someone they can trust more."

Roxie pondered for a moment then sighed and shrugged, "What about you?"

"I may be their leader… but no one really has confidence in me."

"Most of the girls just crush on you," muttered Roxie, but Adrian was too busy concocting something to notice.

Actually… it did not look like he was going it alone. Ever few seconds he said, "Uh-huh," or nodded. Of course, he was consulting with Starsteel telepathically. Maybe he had become a little shy, because he was not conversing with Roxie and with a quick glance to Florina, Roxie guessed that she was not in on their talk either. Suddenly Adrian flipped his mouth into a grin. " We have it. The one person everyone is gonna trust is our teacher… Gabe actually… he's supposed near the Pokecenter, but I guess he just hasn't checked in on the nurse yet… People say he has a thing for the nurse that fills in during these activities," he said with a chortle.

Roxie sighed, but she could not help but smile a bit. "Alright, we're not here to gossip, get on with it." Adrian started to speak again, but Florina got up on Roxie's shoulders and imitated the waving movement Roxie made while telling Adrian to get the point. The act scored quite a loud snicker from Adrian and Starsteel. "Hey, what's so funny?"

"Nothing, nothing. But…" and Adrian slipped back into his serious face, "we send a message to Gabe, he checks it out, sends a message, and we sneak up on them as a surprise attack.

"Well… we have to make sure Gabe is going to let us do this… and that he'll wait for us to attack."

"So you like the idea? Should I send the message?"

Roxie and Florina nodded, which made Starsteel and Adrian giggle once more. Adrian grabbed his PDA out of his pocket and began typing up the message.

"Oh, and I need to send up a sort of fire attack flare," Roxie said eyeing the Pokeballs on Adrian's belt. He tossed her a Pokeball with a red sticker over the button. Roxie released the Pokemon into some nearby trees and ordered it to use a Flamethrower attack. She couldn't exactly make out the shape of the Pokemon before she returned it, but she could have sworn it was a monkey.

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Lacking control of his speed, Eric crashed right in to the "leader" of his little group, Allan. "Oof!" Alan grunted as he toppled over. Eric quickly apologized as he helped the poor guy up. While Allan nervously pushed up his glasses he said, "Since you came rushing back here, I'm assuming there's something wrong with the path ahead."

Eric nodded, but Mag shook his head. The whole group stared at them awkwardly. "Okay, fine, it's more than just a problem with the path."  
"You'd better be sure of that," muttered Mag.

"What the heck could be so bad that you had to come rushing back here like that?" Allan asked.

"You've all see the Shadow Pokemon I own… I snagged them from…" Eric wondered if he should mention his parents, but decided against it, not wanting pity and sympathy. "From a broken branch of Cipher."  
"What? I thought that red-head from last year took care of them!" Joshua piped up.

Brittany shook her head and stepped up to Eric and Allan. "He's right. I… was playing double agent for a while with them." Eric could see the pain of the lie in Brittany's eyes; she did not want to bother the group with her personal issues either.

"This is all great, but what does it have to do with this exercise?" pondered Kitty.

Eric gulped and scratched his head. "We've heard from another… double agent that the rest of the Peons have take over the Pokecenter here and were hoping to snag our Pokemon. In a way it may be good that all of you are there though… and that the other team is on their way. All of us will probably have to battle to take them out. Look out though they…"

"They have Pokemon with types they shouldn't have," Brittany finished. "There's no time to explain, but only Eric can tell what type these Pokemon are for sure… so you just need to judge for yourself what type they are."

"… Okay, we'll go in. Let's just go over the details first," Allan commanded. He and Eric quickly went over the signals while Brittany and Mag went over battle tactics for Delta and Shadow Pokemon with the rest of the group. In the middle of a sentence Eric heard an odd crackle far in the distance. With a quick look behind he saw the puff of a Flamethrower attack. Roxie was coming.

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While Roxie, Adrian, and the rest of their traveling troupe were walking toward the Pokemon Center all sorts of electronic communication devices went off. Excepting Adrian's message, they were all the same; they were to take on their first real mission of suppressing a surprise attack. Adrian was given a more specific message with battle plans, retreat options, and anything else that he would need to lead. "Wow, I'm just glad he took us seriously," Adrian whispered to Roxie, Florina, and Starsteel.

"I'm glad no one's complaining," Roxie added. It was surprising, very surprising to Roxie that everyone went along with their plan. They were right, everyone would have questioned Roxie, but no one would even bother if their trusted teacher gave them orders. "Okay, so everyone here is signed on, but we still have three wild cards," Roxie said as everyone started to move again.

"Oh, and what would those be?" Adrian asked as he tossed a few food pellets to Starsteel who was hovering along beside him.

"Gabe and Koga of course. He gave us all of this, but is he going to be there? He's possibly the most powerful trainer out of all of us and definitely the most experienced."  
"The second?"  
"The other team. What if they don't believe it? What if Eric didn't believe Koga? What if they try to fight us instead of preparing for the Peons?"

"The third?"  
"I hate that I have to take it into account… but Koga."  
"Koga?!" Adrian whispered gruffly. "What about him?"

"… I don't know… he just… he might not have really reformed since those days in Team Rocket."

"But if we don't trust Koga, why even take the next step in sending Gabe that message?"  
"We do trust Koga, I'm just trying to be careful…"

"Eh, Koga won't be able to do anything worse than this surprise attack if he's setting us up for anything."

"We can only hope," Roxie finished with a cautious smirk.

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Koga was hiding behind the cover of a tree when he saw the first water attack go off; it was a Hydro Pump that twisted into the distance. Then the Hydro Pump was broken; someone from the other side of the forest had sent in a Surf attack, but the rider had disappeared as the two attacks collided. As the attacks fell apart, Koga saw a rainbow form and he noticed how much brighter it was then the horrid rainbow of the Hexagons. Koga thought the rainbow, perhaps, was a good omen.

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Eric's team had agreed that he would rush out ahead of the rest of the group to spring the ambush. After the Hexagons had taken Eric's bait, they would in turn come out of hiding and spring the trap back on them. It was brilliant, a reverse ambush. Of course, the whole thing would go pieces if the leader of the other group of aspiring agents did not catch on. Allan just had to hope that this person had a good head when he concocted the scheme.

So Eric went along with the plan and ran right to the center of the clearing with Mag at his side. He could hear the "Oof!" of someone running into something as he had done with Allan before, but for a few moments there was nothing else. Eric had enough time to take in his surroundings. The grass was very short and there were absolutely no trees for many yards all around. Not to far away he could see the Pokemon Center; it would take just a minute to sprint there. Then it finally caught his eye; the ground was full of holes. It was simply unnatural, he hadn't seen any burrowing Pokemon in the forest… and it hit him a second too late.

Mag had walked right over a covered hole. From underground Eric heard a muffled command and screamed, "Away from the hole!" Mag was not able to process the demand before a Pokemon launched itself out of the earth from underneath him, toppling him over. A perfectly executed Dig attack. As soon as the dirt dust cleared, Eric was able to see the Pokemon and its trainer in a blue spandex uniform climbing out of the hole. If Eric had to describe the Pokemon he would say it was a nothing more than a blue blob though it did have two large fin-like arms and two smaller fin-like feet. As it turned to its side he also saw that it had a tail, a dark blue ripple that flowed down the tip of its head to its tail, and large purple markings on its back. The face was the oddest part of all though; it was completely blue except for three specs that Eric assumed were the eyes and nose and a large frown. Eric's Shadow Visor flipped out in front of his eye and revealed the Pokemon to be a Shadow Quagsire. The peon grunted at Eric and smiled "Well, I didn't expect ya' here! Yea, I heard about you, ya' little pesky blondie." More peons came out of the holes. "You ain't seen anythin' yet!"

Eric was so glad that the other team caught on to their trap. "You don't know what you're saying." It would have made what he just said so much less sweet. He held his right hand over his head and made a small motion. Instantly nineteen teens rushed in and tackled the peons popping out of the holes. Roxie ran up to Eric and kissed him on the cheek. Eric blushed heavily and managed to mutter, "I… oh… what was that for."

"Does, it matter? We need to start battling," Roxie whispered, amused. Another peon in a lavender outfit had stepped beside the one in blue.

"Oh… right," Eric said as Florina scurried over to defend Mag. "Hey, did anyone make a loud 'oof' noise from your team."

Roxie had her turn at blushing, "I was so excited to see you I started to run out… but someone stopped me and I…" Roxie's explanation was awarded with a chuckle.

"Hey, you runts! Are you just gonna hand us your Pokemon then?!" shouted the man in blue spandex.

"You might want to return this one…" muttered the woman in the lavender spandex. "It's obviously knocked out."

"Oh, he's just playing dead," Eric boasted with a yawn. "Sky Uppercut!"

"Helping Hand!"

With amazing agility Mag picked himself up and smashed his fist right into the gut of the Quagsire and it flew straight up over the treetops. Florina scurried on top of Mag's head, waiting for gravity to catch up with the blue blotch of blubber. When the time came Florina jumped up and kicked the Quagsire squarely in the stomach; it rose to the same heights as before and smashed into the ground. Amazingly it was not knocked out; it brushed the attack off and stood shakily.

"Sweet Arceus! You've been working on her leg strength, haven't you?" Eric admired.

Roxie yawned dramatically, but she could not help but hide a proud grin. "Oh, that's nothing; you should see her Meteor Mash."

"Well go on and do it then, I definitely have to see that!"

"Okay, Florina Met-!"

"Not so fast!" interjected the woman in purple spandex. She tossed out her own Pokeball and out popped another blob of a Pokemon whose color matched its trainer's outfit.

It looked rather like a miniature blimp, highly miniature; the Pokemon had to be only around four feet tall. Atop its head was what looked like a cloud… or maybe a piece of cotton fluff. Its eyes were about a quarter of its body length down from the fluff. They were small and red, yet dark enough to blend in to the purple of its body. What did not blend in was what seemed to be two giant strips of flashy yellow duct tape strapped onto it in-between its eyes in the shape of an 'x'. The bottom fourth of its body was a lighter shade of purple and out of it came three arms which were all the shade of purple excepting the hands which were the same yellow as the "tape". At the very bottom of the Pokemon was what looked like a rupture in the "blimp" and it was red.

"What the heck is that… thing?" commented Eric. Roxie began to speak, but Eric pulled out his PDA and said "Never mind, I'll just check the List". The Pokemon was very close to the top of the list, its name began with D; it was a Drifblim. "Drifblim?" Eric muttered as he shut off his PDA and stared at the Pokemon oddly. "Flying and Ghost type… an odd combination."

"Not coming from the Sinnoh region," Roxie finally got in. "I saw a report about the Sinnoh region yesterday and I saw this Pokemon in the background."

"So do you have a strategy against it?"  
"How about we just go after the Quagsire?"

"Okay… Let's try a Dynamic Punch to finish it off, Mag."

"Florina, Meteor Mash on Quagsire!"

"Shadow Type Water, the Blaziken."

"Shadow Type Flying, also the Blaziken!"

Great, a Pokemon they never heard about and two new Shadow attacks coming their way. That phase of battle was not looking great for Eric and Roxie, and it was about to get worse. The turn started out with Drifblim summoning up Shadow Energy around itself and ramming right into Mag. It was odd though… usually when Eric saw a physical Shadow move, the Pokemon kept the Shadow Energy around itself, but with this attack it stopped right in the middle of the hit. Mag, after getting up, was glowing a bright red; his Blaze ability had kicked in. Not that it mattered, he and Eric were sticking with Fighting moves against a Pokemon with resistance to Fire moves. So Mag took a swing at the Quagsire's gut, this time with his fist aimed at the side and not the gut, but the Quagsire simply bounced away and fired its own attack while Mag swung with the momentum of his own punch. Eric also found this attack odd, usually special Shadow attacks would just be synthetic versions of the types they were trying to imitate, Eric could tell because they would remain purple. This, however, seemed to be a mix or the synthetic Shadow water and a real water attack. Then it finally hit him, Shadow Type… the move was a Shadow move, but it also carried a normal type. Unfortunately, it also hit Mag, and he was down for the count. Eric was too distracted to return him right away, however. Florina had caught his eye for she was very high in the air, much higher than any Furret should have been able to jump. She was coming down quickly too, aiming right for the Quagsire. The Quagsire did not even see it coming; Florina fell right into it, bouncing off and landing on her feet gracefully, but the blue smudge of fat was left at the bottom of a crater, knocked out.

"Shadow Type Ghost!"  
"Surf!"

As the women shouted battle commands, the men were fumbling for Pokeballs. Eric revved up his Snag Machine and placed an Great Ball in it. Luckily when the peon tried to take the Pokeball off his belt it fell off… and luckily the belt was not actually holding anything up because the spandex was a one piece. Just as the peon had pried the Pokeball from his belt clip, Eric had tossed his Snag Ball. The Peon scurried to return his Pokemon in a red beam, but the Snag Ball disrupted the beam and caused a failed return. The capture was perfection though; there was not a single squirm from the Pokeball before it returned to Eric's hand… Then it disappeared because he was only allotted three Pokemon during the training exercise. Eric then returned Mag and stuck his tongue out at the Peon.

Meanwhile Florina spouted out an entire wave and rode it right in to the Drifblim. The Shadow Drifblim took the attack head on and waited for Florina to come to it. Once it did, it allowed Florina to phase through it slightly then stopped, effectively trapping Florina inside it. Some crunching noises were heard and Shadow Energy gathered around the Drifblim, then Florina fell to the ground. She was relatively unharmed, as Roxie could tell when she once again made a graceful landing. Here was the disadvantage of Shadow Type moves, while they could be super effective three times over; they could also be resisted three times over if the defending Pokemon was a shadow. I this case the super effectiveness of the Shadow Energy and the resistance of Steel type to Ghost type moves had balanced out. If only Florina was her natural Normal type she would have been completely immune to the attack…

Roxie revved up her Snag Machine for a capture, but she realized that after capturing the Piloswine and Godzuki yesterday, she had run out of Pokeballs. She turned her head to ask to borrow one from Eric, but by her feet she saw a Quick Ball, something else she had learned about in the Sinnoh special. It was still early in the battle, so she figured the Quick Ball would be fairly effective. She picked it up, left it in threw Snag machine for a moment, then tossed it at the Drifblim. Roxie was surprised to see that the Quick Ball was not just name for its effectiveness early in battle; it seemed to vanish from her hand and reappear next to the Drifblim. The actual capture was the longest part of the whole process because the ball wiggles and squirmed for what seemed like an eternity. Just as Roxie wondered if she should have weakened the Shadow Drifblim longer the Quick Ball reappeared in her hand.

The two peons, obviously out of usable Pokemon tried to escape into the forest… and were immediately captured in a web trap. Eric, Roxie, and Florina followed after them and almost ran into it themselves. "Whoa, what do you thing did that?" pondered Eric as Florina hopped up on his shoulder. She licked his cheek happily and he jested, "Two kisses from to beautiful ladies,"

Roxie stifled a laugh and blushed. "I'm pretty sure there are Ariados in the woods…"  
Eric looked around and saw that all exits from the clearing were sealed with spider webs. "So… wild Pokemon just happened to help us like this?"  
Adrian ran up to Eric and Roxie with Starsteel sitting contently atop his head and grinned. "Nope, I purposefully only took Starsteel here with me so I could catch two Ariados for their spider web attack."

"What? But I've been with you since we set out yesterday…" Roxie commented.

"Except when we all went to our tents. While everyone else was sleeping I went out and caught the Ariados."  
"But are traps really worth having less Pokemon to use in battle?" Eric asked.

"Hey, don't question what's working right in front of your eyes," Adrian boasted with a wink. Eric took another look around… nearly all the battle were done and nearly all the peons were either caught in the boundary web traps or were being bundled up by the Ariados. "Its just too bad you guys know about my trap now," Adrian added with a friendly chuckle.

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It was easy to finish up with the Peons that were left in the clearing due to the web traps. The group rushed into the Pokemon Center where they met more resistance from some peons, but none were that harmful because the Ariados were able to tie up the majority of them before they could release Pokemon. Within another half-hour the teams had rustled up all the peons but Koga and locked them in one of the guestrooms of the Pokemon Center. It took Eric another half-hour of tinkering with his snag machine to give the other kids back Pokemon that had been snagged from them by the Hexagons.

Roxie meanwhile helped the resident nurse heal all the injured Pokemon. She was amused to find out that the nurse was male and Gabe's younger half brother; she gave Adrian heck about it afterward. "So, I hear Gabe has a thing for the nurse here?" she asked Adrian faux causally.

"Ugh, look, I just heard that he stopped by this center a lot during these training things and I assu-"

"Uh-oh, that's how rumors get started, don't you know?" Roxie chided him sarcastically with a 'tsk tsk' wag of the finger.

Adrian moaned dramatically and Starsteel imitated him perfectly. Roxie and Starsteel burst out in laughter while Adrian stood staring at them. Eric walked up to them with Florina now napping on his head and chuckled. "Looks like you two are having fun."

Adrian yawned. "I'll leave you two lover birds to make googly eyes at each other." It was Eric and Roxie's turn to flush white and stare. "I saw that little peck on the cheek," Adrian said with a wink. "When you're done I'll need to see you though, okay Roxie?"

Eric, completely trying to ignore the romantic tension that Adrian aroused, said, "He's a pretty cool guy, eh?"

"Yea, he's a good leader…"

There was an awkward silence, but it was broken when Gabe rushed into the Pokecenter with his Machamp and Alakazam who looked more than ready for battle. Everyone laughed except for Allan who said, "Relax, we took care of everything!" Gabe looked skeptical the whole time, but he had the peons teleported to Wes and told everyone to have lunch at the Pokemon Center and stay there for at least two more hours until they resumed their exercise. He pulled Roxie and Eric aside for a chat.

"You guys want to keep on with this exercise, right?"  
Eric and Roxie looked at one another and nodded. "Of course," they said simultaneously.

"Eh, it'll probably be a few days before we can get anything out of these guys an' gals anyway. It means that right out of this you'll probably have to get back to your missions though." They both nodded. "Okay, you two are easy," Gabe said with a smile. "I'm just going to chat my brother up a bit an' I'll be on my way then." He waved goodbye and the two were alone once again.

They, along with their Pokemon ate lunch and played out in the forest clearing with various sports supplies from the Pokecenter. It had only been an hour since Gabe left and the unity between the two teams was breaking. People stopped talking to their friends and meandered back to their teams to talk strategy. It seemed no one was really phased by the major battle they had just faced. Eric was told his team was leaving three by three so that it wouldn't be so easy for the opposing team to engage them all in battle. He would be the last to leave, alone. Adrian was releasing people at the same rate, excepting that he told people to go back to the red base instead of the opposing base. His full plan he only revealed to Roxie.

"Okay, I know it's a long shot, but…" Adrian began.

"No, you've been planning this all along with the Ariados," Roxie said as she pet Florina who was curled up, sleeping in her arms.

"It's not only that, I had someone plant a bug on Eric."

"Whoa, what?"  
"They're using the same time release tactic as us; they're even pretending to be 'napping' like most of us who aren't leaving right away so it seams like we're still here when we sneak out. When I bugged Eric though, I heard that he thought he picked up what he thought might be parts of the password… and he said he was 'tired enough to take a real nap.'"

"So you're going to get Eric while he's sleeping and get the letters out of him… but how?"

"Just leave it to me."

"Okay… Sure, sounds like a good idea. When are we doing it?"

"As soon as everyone goes to the guest rooms. We have to do it fast or Eric will be missed sooner. They probably planned a place to stop and meet up like we did."

The scheme had not a flaw. Only Eric and Blaze were in the room and both were sleeping. Roxie carefully took Mag's Pokeball off of Eric's belt and returned him. "I can't believe he's a Blaziken now… and that name…" Roxie whispered and shook her head. One of the Ariados bundled Eric up and carried him on its back. There was only one story in the Pokemon Center so Roxie, Adrian, and the Ariados easily slipped out of the window and into the forest. If Eric ever woke up, the Ariados left Eric under a nest of Pokemon that produced Sleep Powder and waited for it to take effect. Even with their frequent stops, Roxie and Adrian were at the base before anyone else. They put his Pokeballs in Roxie's room and left it locked. Roxie wanted to store the Pokeballs in the PC, but for this exercise she could not. Eric was left tied up in Adrian's room.

"So what now?…" Roxie asked over a dinner with Adrian in the cafeteria.

"Now we wait for Ashley to get back with her Politoed," Adrian said as he pushed his food around with his fork.

"What's that Politoed have anything to do anything with it?"  
"Everything." Adrian got up and began to walk away. "Just get some sleep, okay?" He threw the rest of his food out. "Oh, and make sure Starsteel comes back to my room when he's done."

"Fine…" Roxie hated being left in the dark, but she knew whatever he cooked up was set in motion and if she pushed too hard she'd probably break it. So she sat there and finished her dinner with Florina and Starsteel wondering how a Politoed would help them at all.

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Comments:

-Whewt, I cleaned up the peons in one fell swoop! xD

-New Shadow Type attacks that count as Shadow Moves but also have a type, "Ooooo!"

-Now where the heck could Koga have disappeared to? I'm curious to see what you all thought of him as the Poison Peon. x3 Be sure to look out for him in the future. ;D

-If anyone figures out what Politoed is for, please don't spoil it for the other readers. If you really must, you can PM me for confirmation. P

-I know the Sinnoh stuff sounds a little cheesy because I'm incorporating it right now, but I have an explanation coming up soon.

-hopes I don't get a bunch of posts about how its been forever since I last updated

-hopes I still have readers


End file.
